The decoration on this dish has been painted under the green glaze. It features two fish and a Persian quatrain (a four-line verse).
The body of the dish is fritware, also known as stone paste or quartz paste. Middle Eastern potters developed the material as a response to the challenge posed by Chinese porcelain. The main ingredient was fine quartz powder made by grinding sand or pebbles. Small quantities of white clay and a glassy substance known as frit were added. The clay gave plasticity. The frit helped to bind the body after firing.
This piece was made in the 16th century, when ceramic production in Iran was on a modest scale. When the capital moved to Isfahan around 1600, the production of luxury dishes and wall tiles in a wide variety of styles and techniques rapidly increased.
Physical description
Dish with a foliate rim, decorated in underglaze black under a green glaze with fishes and a floral border, with Persian verses below the rim.
Place of Origin
Iran (possibly Tabriz, made)
Date
1500-1550 (made)
Artist/maker
Unknown (production)
Materials and Techniques
Fritware, painted under the glaze
Dimensions
Diameter: 35.3 cm, Height: 6.1 cm
Object history note
Brought from Kubachi (Daghestan).
Arthur Lane suggested that the glaze might have been intended to be the more traditional turquoise-tinted glaze, but as a result of too much lead in the copper glaze, it has turned this bright yellowish green in the firing process, (Lane, 1957, p. 78)
Descriptive line
Dish, fritware, painted in bluck with with paired fish and Persian verses, covered in a transparent green glaze, Iran, possibly Tabriz, 1500-1550.
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
Lisa Golombek, Robert B. Mason, Gauvin A. Bailey, Tamerlane's tableware : a new approach to the chinoiserie ceramics of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Iran, Costa Mesa, California, 1996, p.152.
This dish is part of the so-called "Weedback" group attributed to a Tabriz workshop by Golombek et al.
J. Michael Rogers, 'Ceramics', in R.W. Ferrier (ed.), The Arts of Persia, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1989, pp. 255-70, pl. 25.
Ernst J. Grube, 'Notes on the Decorative Arts of the Timurid Period,' in A. Forte et al. (eds.) Gururajamanjarika Studi in Onore di Giuseppe Tucci, Istituto Universitario Orientale, Naples, Vol. 1, 1974, pp. 233-80, fig. 20.
Arthur Lane, Later Islamic Pottery. London: Faber and Faber, 1957, pp. 36 & 78, pl. 52A.
Arthur Lane, 'The So-called 'Kubachi' Wares of Persia', Burlington Magazine, 75, pp.156-62, pl. Ic.
Arthur Upham Pope, A Survey of Persian Art, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1938, pl.788.
Labels and date
Dish with Two Fish
Iran
1500-1600
Fritware painted under a green glaze
Museum no. 552-1905 [Jameel Gallery]
DISH
White earthenware painted in black with under green glaze.
NORTH PERSIAN; secondhalf of the 15th century.
552-1905
Brought from Kubachi in Daghestan (Caucasus). [Old 133G-1970s]
Production Note
Golombek
Materials
Fritware
Techniques
Underglazing
Subjects depicted
Floral patterns; Fish; Poetry
Categories
Ceramics
Collection code
MES
