Bowl with Hares, Iraq, possibly Baghdad or Basra, Abbasid Period (750-1258). Earthenware, luster-painted on opaque white glaze. Height: 10.2 cm; Rim (Diameter): 22.5 cm; Base (Diameter): 8.9 cm.Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey, 1941.22 © Toledo Museum of Art 

Outcurved bowl with shallow foot ring; four flanges on the inside. Decorated with five roundels in brownish gold, showing rabbits with palmettes hanging from mouths.

Around the turn of the 9th century, Abbasid potters in Iraq developed a means of imitating Chinese porcelain by coating earthenware with tin-opacified, white glaze to disguise the yellowish hues of local clay. The shape of this bowl also recalls Chinese ceramics. Meanwhile, the metallic sheen of the copper-toned decoration results from an overglaze luster technique that Abbasid potters borrowed from the Islamic glass industry. Taste for lusterware and its production methods later spread from Iraq to Iran, Egypt, and the Iberian Peninsula.