Safavid ceramic dish painted in grey and black

The whole dish is reserve-painted in grey on black with a brown rim. A white band separates the 2 different intertwining scrolls in the well and in the centre. Both scrolls consist of regularly spaced rosettes on a ground of compact small clouds. In the middle there is a larger rosette divided into six parts each with a rosette. The outside has 10 panels filled with bracketed medallions of small clouds divided into two by a thick black diagonal line. There is a band of thin crossed lines above the base ring, inside of which six spur marks surround the recessed centre. The controlled design creates an impressive and startling decoration.

This object was purchased in Tehran in 1873, by Robert Murdoch Smith on behalf of the Museum. In his first bulk acquisition for the South Kensington Museum (today the V&A), Murdoch Smith had bought "a considerable collection" of over 100 examples of metalwork, ceramic, inlaid woodwork and textile from different local sources, including French diplomat Emile Charles Bernay and four art-dealers: Nasrullah Dellal, Abu'l-Hassan Dellal, Abdul-Husayn and Reza Kashi of Tehran. Many further acquisitions followed in the years 1873-1878 and 1883-1885, most extensively from the art-dealer Jules Richard, long resident in Tehran.

Persian blue and white ceramics were primarily produced during the rule of the Safavid Dynasty in Iran (early 16th century to early 18th century). Iranian potters were almost exclusively preoccupied with making wares in the styles of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain some close copies and some more fanciful. Echoes of earlier traditions remained, in particular in the black-under-turquoise colour scheme that dates back in Iran to the end of the 12th century. Towards the end of the 16th century there was a widening of interest that blossomed in the 17th century to a wide range of styles and techniques in which blue and white plays a dominant but not exclusive role.

407-1874