Dish, fritware, painted in underglaze blue on white, Iran, Safavid period, 1600-1700

The flange and well are covered with seven panels - four containing flowers, the others a tassel and ribbons with either a leaf, a tube or a round object. The jewelled dividers have top geometric patterns. The seven-bracket Kraak frame contains a lion with a curly mane and a bushy tail on a rounded mound with rocks and grass. The beast prances towards two Kraak flowers. On the left a fine line of spotted rocks borders on two tree trunks. A tuft of vegetation above a dot, hangs from the Kraak cloud formation at the top. The outer flange and border are painted with seven panels with a leafy peach. A comma fills each divider. There are three tassel marks.

Historical significance: From the last quarter of the 16th until the mid 17th Century, Chinese dishes with petal panels were common export wares. The striking effect of the new style of decoration made the design popular not only with the Persian potter, but also across western Europe. The design originated in the Tang dynasty, when the flattened petals of the lotus decorated Buddhist paintings, stone tiles and various artefacts. These panels vary in number but they are usually six or eight, according to the size of the dish. Flowers, fruit, birds and sacred emblems were adopted as decorations and the simplified leafy peach motif became especially popular in both China and Persia. In the 17th Century, Persian potters reinterpreted the human figures copied from Chinese models in a comic manner.

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 played a dominant but not exclusive role.

Inspired by Chinese porcelain.

444-1878