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

Kalian

1650-1700 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

The designs on Safavid lustreware are purely Iranian, and owe nothing to Chinese designs, so prevalent in underglaze blue painted wares. Potters revived a three-hundred year old Iranian decorative technique in the second half of the Seventeenth century. However, the sources for the designs are found in contemporary manuscript illuminations, some dated about 1675.

A kalian is a tobacco pipe with a long flexible tube connected to a container where the smoke is cooled by passing through water. They are also known as a hookah, huqqa, qalian, qalyan, qaliyan, narghile, shisha, and a hubble-bubble.


Object details

Category
Object type
Materials and techniques
Fritware, underglaze and lustre decoration
Brief description
Kalian (water-pipe base), fritware, cobalt blue ground, overglaze painted in ruby-coloured lustre; Iran, 1650-1700.
Physical description
Kalian or waterpipe base, fritware, cobalt blue ground, glazed and overglaze painted with metallic ruby lustre with plant forms and split-palmette bands.
Dimensions
  • Height: 20.3cm
  • Diameter: 16.5cm
Style
Subject depicted
Summary
The designs on Safavid lustreware are purely Iranian, and owe nothing to Chinese designs, so prevalent in underglaze blue painted wares. Potters revived a three-hundred year old Iranian decorative technique in the second half of the Seventeenth century. However, the sources for the designs are found in contemporary manuscript illuminations, some dated about 1675.

A kalian is a tobacco pipe with a long flexible tube connected to a container where the smoke is cooled by passing through water. They are also known as a hookah, huqqa, qalian, qalyan, qaliyan, narghile, shisha, and a hubble-bubble.
Collection
Accession number
985-1883

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Record createdJune 24, 2009
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