Dish, fritware, painted in cobalt blue with deers in a landscape in imitation of a Chinese Kraak ware design, Iran, 1600-40.

The extended eight brackets of the rim set the size of the panels filled with a double peach branch and a bird flying across them. The jewelled dividers have a geometric top but no base. An eight-bracket Kraak frame surrounds the traditional scene of a deer and a light blue doe on a mound with two hollow rocks and tufts of grass. There is a T-mark and a single dot to one side. The stem of a pine tree with ample branches bends over to the left from the right of the dish. Two clouds glide across the top of the scene. The rather large panels overwhelm the centre which is less than half the width of the dish. Eight leafy peach panels with comma dividers decorate the outside. A large double circle surrounds the tassel mark inside the base ring.

Single or double peach branches are regular patterns on Kraak wares.

Historical significance: From the last quarter of the 16th until mid 17th century Chinese dishes with petal panels were the 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 are adopted as decorations and the simplified leafy peach motif becomes especially popular in both China and Persia. In the 17th century Persian potters reinterpret 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 plays a dominant but not exclusive role.

1103-1876