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

Dish

1450-1475 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Mashhad was an important holy city with a shrine built to commemorate Imam Reza, a descendent of the prophet Mohammed, attracting thousands of pilgrims each year. Under Shah Rukh it became a major Timurid capital. A pottery workshop must have been established there by the 1440s, as an unusual pot, perhaps a sprinkler or ewer, the decoration maybe the cannabis plant, is inscribed with the date AH848(AD1444/5) and a poetic verse incorporating the word 'Mashhad'. The pot, a "souvenir" bought by a pilgrim, is in the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh.

Petrographic analysis (the study of the geological particles in the body) of this vessel and a dish in the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, similar to the V&A dish, but painted with three asters having an inscription and dated AH878 (AD1473/4), provide confirmation of the types of wares produced in Mashhad. Dishes have a narrow footrim, and the distinctive rim border pattern. The designs are probably based on local luxury wares produced at Nishapur, rather than direct imitations of Chinese porcelain. The wares from this workshop are rare.


Object details

Category
Object type
Materials and techniques
Buff-coloured fritware, underglaze-painted in olive-green against white slip, clear glaze
Brief description
Dish, fritware, underglaze-painted in greenish-black with three ducks on a pond within a stylized wave and rock border, Iran, Mashhad, 1450-1475.
Physical description
Dish, fritware, with flat rim and narrow foot, covered with a white slip, underglaze-painted in a dark olive-green, a chromium oxide colourant, depicting three ducks among water-plants in a pond, two borders around the rim, one with a stylized water weed border and the other with panels of stripes and scrolls loosely imitating Chinese wave borders.
Dimensions
  • Diameter: 34.9cm
Style
Object history
Probably part of the group found in Kubachi, Daghestan in Northwest Iran.
Production
register, Golombek, et al.
Subjects depicted
Summary
Mashhad was an important holy city with a shrine built to commemorate Imam Reza, a descendent of the prophet Mohammed, attracting thousands of pilgrims each year. Under Shah Rukh it became a major Timurid capital. A pottery workshop must have been established there by the 1440s, as an unusual pot, perhaps a sprinkler or ewer, the decoration maybe the cannabis plant, is inscribed with the date AH848(AD1444/5) and a poetic verse incorporating the word 'Mashhad'. The pot, a "souvenir" bought by a pilgrim, is in the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh.

Petrographic analysis (the study of the geological particles in the body) of this vessel and a dish in the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, similar to the V&A dish, but painted with three asters having an inscription and dated AH878 (AD1473/4), provide confirmation of the types of wares produced in Mashhad. Dishes have a narrow footrim, and the distinctive rim border pattern. The designs are probably based on local luxury wares produced at Nishapur, rather than direct imitations of Chinese porcelain. The wares from this workshop are rare.
Bibliographic references
  • Lisa Golombek, Robert B. Mason, and Gauvin A. Bailey, Tamerlane's tableware : a new approach to the chinoiserie ceramics of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Iran, Costa Mesa, California, (Mazda Publishers in association with Royal Ontario Museum) 1996, p. 153, and pl. 59, p. 217.
  • Marina Whitman, Persian Blue-and- White Ceramics: Cycles of Chinoiserie, University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1978,, fig. 65.
Collection
Accession number
911-1903

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Record createdMarch 23, 2009
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