Dish thumbnail 1
Dish thumbnail 2
Image of Gallery in South Kensington
On display at V&A South Kensington
Ceramics, Room 137, The Curtain Foundation Gallery

Dish

1500-1575 (made)
Artist/Maker
Unknown
Place of origin
Iran (made)
Tabriz

Seven groups of three tightly rounded waves alternate with seven single ones on the flange. A peacock in flight fills the centre surrounded by leafy branches with spiky leaves. Loose leafy branches meander round the outer well. The base has thtree spur marks and its ring two hanging holes. There is no mark. The glaze is cracked and the body is coarse fritware.


Object details

Category
Ceramics
Object type
Dish
Materials and techniques
Fritware, underglaze painted
Fritware
Painted
Brief description
Dish, fritware, painted in blue with a peacock in flight surrounded by an inscription, Iran, perhaps Tabriz, 1500-1575
Physical description
Seven groups of three tightly rounded waves alternate with seven single ones on the flange. A peacock in flight fills the centre surrounded by leafy branches with spiky leaves. Loose leafy branches meander round the outer well. The base has thtree spur marks and its ring two hanging holes. There is no mark. The glaze is cracked and the body is coarse fritware.
Dimensions
  • Height: 6.2cm
  • Width: 33.3cm
Style
Safavid
Marks and inscriptions
ساقی بنور باده بر افروز جام ما مطرب بگو که کار جهان شد بکام ما (This is the opening couplet of a lyric by Hafiz (no. XI). The two couplets on this dish were written in a careless manner, and while this first couplet is easy to recognize, the second couplet, which is from another source, cannot be fully deciphered.)
Translation
Pot-boy, light up our cup with the glow of wine! Minstrel, tell how the world has gone as we desired!
Subjects depicted
Bird
Leaves
Bibliographic references
  • Yolande Crowe, Persia and China: Safavid Blue and White Ceramics in the Victoria & Albert Museum 1501-1738, Geneva, Switzerland and London, 2002, cat. no. 5, p. 51.
  • Lisa Golombek, Robert B. Mason, Gauvin A. Bailey, Tamerlane's tableware : a new approach to the chinoiserie ceramics of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Iran, Mazda Publishers in association with Royal Ontario Museum, Costa Mesa, California, 1996, p. 153.
  • Marina Whitman, Persian Blue-and- White Ceramics: Cycles of Chinoiserie, University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1978, fig. 136.
  • Arthur Lane, 'The So-called 'Kubachi' Wares of Persia', The Burlington Magazine, vol. 75 (October 1939), pp. 156-163, pl.I.f.
  • Seyed Rasoul Mousavi Haji, Morteza Ataie and Maryam Asgariveshareh, بررسی محتوایی وشکلی کتیبه های منظوم فارسی در سفالینه های دوران تیموری وصفوی in فصلنامة علمي- پژوهشي نگره, Summer 1396/2015, no.34, p.26, fig.12, p.28.
Collection
Middle East Section
Accession number
564-1905

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Record createdMarch 6, 2008
Record URL
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O146809/dish-unknown/
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