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

Bottle

1640-70 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

The garlic head, a reference to the knop or bulge in the neck, is similar to that on Chinese bottles recovered from the San Diego wreck, a galleon sunk in 1600, a short distance away from Fortune Island, Nasugbu, Philippines, which was laden with Chinese export porcelain.


Object details

Category
Object type
Materials and techniques
Fritware, underglaze painted in blue
Brief description
Bottle, fritware, painted in underglaze blue with a design after a Chinese Transitional original (c. 1635); Iran, 1640-70.
Physical description
Bottle of fritware, with bulbous body, long neck with knop, known as a "garlic-mouth". Painted in underglaze blue with two stylized irises and their leaves, inspired by Chinese Transitional style tulips, decorate the neck. A band of lighter scrollwork marks the shoulder. A continuous scene with figures runs round the body below rocky islands with huts and trees, and a Transitionalstyle cloud. Part of a blaustrade with a lotus finial separates the usual group of two seated figures wearing hats form another bareheaded and robed figure. There is a band of linked lappets over the base ring. Imitation Chinese "tassel" mark in blue.

The top of the "garlic head" above the knop has been broken off and ground down.
Dimensions
  • Height: 29.8cm
  • Diameter: 17.8cm
Style
Production
Y. Crowe, cat. no. 237.
Subjects depicted
Summary
The garlic head, a reference to the knop or bulge in the neck, is similar to that on Chinese bottles recovered from the San Diego wreck, a galleon sunk in 1600, a short distance away from Fortune Island, Nasugbu, Philippines, which was laden with Chinese export porcelain.
Bibliographic reference
Crowe, Yolande. Persia and China: Safavid blue and white ceramics in the Victoria & Albert Museum 1501-1738. London: Thames and Hudson, 2002, Cat. 237, p. 152.
Collection
Accession number
1845-1876

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Record createdMarch 20, 2009
Record URL
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