Incomplete massive Mina'i pottery storage jar, Central Iran, c.1200 (ceramic)

Baluster body and vertical neck with slightly everted rim, the white body moulded and decorated with overglaze polychrome enamels and gilt, the shoulder with a design of figures wearing colourful geometric-design cloaks and mounted on red and blue horses on a ground of vine issuing colourful palmettes, below a blue-outlined star and cross lattice, above an undeciphered inscription in red-outlined blue kufic against a ground of red-scrolls, the neck moulded with a band of blue arabesque below an animal register of which only part of a cheetah remains, the mouth with a series of green and red dots, the interior with plain cobalt-blue glaze.