Flask thumbnail 1
Flask thumbnail 2
+4
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Image of Gallery in South Kensington
On display at V&A South Kensington
Ceramics, Room 137, The Curtain Foundation Gallery

Flask

Flask
1523-1524 (made)
Artist/Maker
Unknown
Place of origin
Iran (made)
Nishapur (made)


There is a long tradition of pottery production in Nishapur. During the Safavid period, the artistic and merchant community must have supported the local industry, as Nishapur was not directly associated with the court, who were the usual patrons. Although destroyed by earthquakes and Mongols, a pottery industry was re-established by 1430, following the Diaspora of potters from Samarqand in 1411. This flask, dated 930 AH / 1523-4 AD, was produced in the decades before Iran was flooded with mass-produced Chinese export porcelain in the Jiajing and later Wanli periods, around 1550-1625.

The shape is ultimately based on metal pilgrim flasks, such as the large Syrian brass canteen, dating to the mid-13th century, in the collection of the Freer Gallery, Washington. The form was designed to be carried by travellers or slung from horse trappings by straps attached to handles, now missing, along with the neck. In ceramics, pilgrim flasks, presumably ornamental, appear in early 15th century Chinese porcelain in the Yongle and Xuande periods, possibly made as diplomatic gifts.

The decoration is also inspired by Chinese porcelain of the Xuande period (1426-35), which suggests that in the finest examples the potters had access to a courtly collection of "antique" porcelain. However, this flask, part of a group, which includes a pilgrim flask painted with ducks, in the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, which is a more loose interpretation of a Chinese prototype, and a large dish in the Middle Eastern Culture Center in Mitaka, Tokyo, with a very similar design. The Tokyo dish has two birds and an inscription with the date 929 AH / 1522-3 AD as well as the name of the place of manufacture "Nishapur".


Object details

Category
Ceramics
Object type
Flask
Titles
  • Flask (generic title)
  • Bottle (generic title)
Materials and techniques
Fritware, underglaze painted
Fritware
Brief description
Flask, fritware painted under the glaze in blue on white with a bird among flowers framed by inscriptions in Persian, dated 930 in the Hijri calendar, equivalent to AD 1523-24, probably Nishapur, Iran.
Physical description
Flask, fritware, of flattened circular form, raised on a tall round footring, the neck is missing, as are the handles indicated by the base of one lug and an unglazed patch on the upper shoulder,underglaze-painted in blue, the circular panels depicting a single bird perched on a flower spray, one of three each with blossoms resembling stylized lotus flowers, within a border of nasta'liq script with poetic inscription incorporating a dated 930 AH/1523-4 AD. The panel on each side is decorated with three ogee-shaped medallions with cloud collar bands below a circle of petals at the handle base. There is a wax seal inside the base and no mark.
Dimensions
  • Height: 24.6cm
  • Width: 23.8 x 16.5cm
Style
Safavid
Marks and inscriptions
  • Side A تا گردنی سراحی می خم نمیشود غم از دل رمیده کم نمی شود سراحی دار خون شد بی لب لعلت درونی من دهن چون باز کردم تشنه شد خلقی بخونی من عاقبت جمله رندان خیر باد اتم [...] ۹۳۰ With corrected spelling: تا گردن صراحی می خم نمیشود غم از دل رمیده کم نمی شود صراحی دار خون شد بی لب لعلت درون من دهن چون باز کردم تشنه شد خلقی بخون من عاقبت جمله رندان خیر باد اتم [...] ۹۳۰
    Translation
    While the neck of the wine-bottle is not bent [towards us] The suffering of our grieving hearts will not grow less! Without your ruby lips, the bottle has become the container of the blood within me: When I opened its mouth, some people were thirsty for my blood. May it end well for all the company of drinkers! It was completed [...] 930
  • Side B یارب که مرا صحبت جان به تو مباد انجام زمانه یک زمان به تو مباد وز هستی من نام و نشان به تو مباد کوتاه کنم سخن جهان به تو مباد گفت یکی رند درین کهنه دیر عاقبت جمله رندان خیر اتم فی شهور سنه ۹۳۰ With spelling corrected: یارب که مرا صحبت جان بی تو مباد انجام زمانه یک زمان بی تو مباد وز هستی من نام و نشان بی تو مباد کوتاه کنم سخن جهان بی تو مباد کفت یکی رند درین کهنه دیر عاقبت جمله رندان خیر اتم فی شهور سنه ۹۳۰ ( The first two couplets are found in the Mu’nis al-ahbab (see, for example, ms. 1504/2s in the Majlis Library, Tehran, available on ketabpedia.com) of Shihab al-Din ‘Abdallah ibn Muhammad Murvarid Kirmani, whose pen-name was Bayani (see, for example, Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. ‘Abdallah Morvarid). * A monastery was conventionally seen as a place where monks made wine, and therefore as a wine-shop.)
    Translation
    Oh Lord! Without you there would be no discourse with the world for me , And without you there would be no trace of my existence – no name, no mark! Without you there would be no end of time, nor yet a single moment! I will be brief: without you there would be no world at all! A dissolute man once said in this old monastery, “May it end well for all the company of drinkers!” It was completed during the months of the year 930.
Object history
The flask was part of the Salting Bequest, and until its gift in 1910, was catalogued as Chinese porcelain. When Salting had loaned the flask to a temporary exhibition at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1885, the catalogue noted that the flask (identified as "Persian Pilgrim Bottle") was "from Consul Churchill's collection". This refers to Harry Lionel Churchill (1860-1924), a British diplomat who was appointed Consul of the British Legation in Tehran in 1891. Churchill's red wax seal remains on the base of the flask, in Persian script. Churchill's brother Sidney Churchill (1862-1921) was resident in Tehran at the same time, and sold objects directly to the South Kensington Museum.
Subjects depicted
Flowers
Birds
Poetry
Association
Summary

There is a long tradition of pottery production in Nishapur. During the Safavid period, the artistic and merchant community must have supported the local industry, as Nishapur was not directly associated with the court, who were the usual patrons. Although destroyed by earthquakes and Mongols, a pottery industry was re-established by 1430, following the Diaspora of potters from Samarqand in 1411. This flask, dated 930 AH / 1523-4 AD, was produced in the decades before Iran was flooded with mass-produced Chinese export porcelain in the Jiajing and later Wanli periods, around 1550-1625.

The shape is ultimately based on metal pilgrim flasks, such as the large Syrian brass canteen, dating to the mid-13th century, in the collection of the Freer Gallery, Washington. The form was designed to be carried by travellers or slung from horse trappings by straps attached to handles, now missing, along with the neck. In ceramics, pilgrim flasks, presumably ornamental, appear in early 15th century Chinese porcelain in the Yongle and Xuande periods, possibly made as diplomatic gifts.

The decoration is also inspired by Chinese porcelain of the Xuande period (1426-35), which suggests that in the finest examples the potters had access to a courtly collection of "antique" porcelain. However, this flask, part of a group, which includes a pilgrim flask painted with ducks, in the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, which is a more loose interpretation of a Chinese prototype, and a large dish in the Middle Eastern Culture Center in Mitaka, Tokyo, with a very similar design. The Tokyo dish has two birds and an inscription with the date 929 AH / 1522-3 AD as well as the name of the place of manufacture "Nishapur".
Bibliographic references
  • Y. Crowe, Persia and China: Safavid Blue and White Ceramics in the Victoria and Albert Museum 1501-1738, Thames and Hudson, Geneva, Switzerland, and London, 2002, p. 50, cat. no. 2, and colour plate 2.
  • Lisa Golombek, Robert B. Mason, Gauvin A. Bailey, Tamerlane's tableware : a new approach to the chinoiserie ceramics of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Iran, Mazda Publishers in association with Royal Ontario Museum, Costa Mesa, California, 1996, Pl. 48.
  • J. Michael Rogers, Islamic Art and Design: 1500-1700, London, 1983, cat. no. 152.
  • Marina Whitman, Persian Blue-and-White Ceramics: Cycles of Chinoiserie, University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor Michigan, 1978, fig. 97a-b.
  • Yolande Crowe, 'A Preliminary Enquiry into the Underglaze Decoration of Safavid Wares', in Margaret Medley (ed.), Decorative Techniques and Styles in Asian Ceramics, London, 1978, pp. 104-25, pl. 2a.
  • Lane, Arthur. Later Islamic Pottery. London: Faber and Faber, 1957, pl. 64B.
  • Richard Ettinghausen, "Important Pieces of Persian Pottery in London Collections", Ars Islamica, 1935, 2:45-64, fig. 14.
  • Burlington Fine Arts Club, Catalogue of Specimens illustrative of Persian and Arab Art Exhibited in 1885, 1885, p.29, no.229.
  • Seyed Rasoul Mousavi Haji, Morteza Ataie and Maryam Asgariveshareh, بررسی محتوایی وشکلی کتیبه های منظوم فارسی در سفالینه های دوران تیموری وصفوی in فصلنامة علمي- پژوهشي نگره, Summer 1396/2015, no.34, p.26, fig.11, pp.27–8.
Collection
Middle East Section
Accession number
C.1973-1910

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Record createdNovember 19, 2003
Record URL
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O85984/flask-flask-unknown/
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