Safavid blue and white ceramic dish

A band of wave-and-spray motifs covers the flange. An eight-flower scroll with neat leaves fills the well. Within a double circle, a dark blue twisted dragon with a long mane cavorts on four legs amidst scrolling leaves and two florets. Four S-stems with a central lotus leaf and smaller leaves decorate the outside.

Historical significance: In the middle of the 17th century scrolling leaves appeared as a new motif in Safavid blue and white ceramic wares. This motif appears to be a further Persian transformation of Chinese leaves starting with the spiky leaf of the late Yuan period then using the lotus and leaf scroll of the early 16th century and finally adopting a simplified outline to produce a scrolling repeat, a mechanical pattern distinguishing it from a specific Chinese model. At this time, Persian potters established some freedom in design which allowed them to return to creating geometric compositions. S-stems with a lotus leaf or another innovation, the peach, decorate the outside of dishes, with the peach stem more often used on smaller dishes. In this particular dish, the composition is a typical blend of Chinese motifs from different periods: Yuan wave-and-spray, early Ming dragon with a neatly combed mane. It is the Persian scrolling leaf pattern which suggests a date later than that offered by Chinese motifs.

Persian blue and white ceramics were primarily produced during the rule of the Safavid Dynasty in Iran (early 16th century to early 18th century). Iranian potters were almost exclusively preoccupied with making wares in the styles of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain some close copies and some more fanciful. Echoes of earlier traditions remained, in particular in the black-under-turquoise colour scheme that dates back in Iran to the end of the 12th century. Towards the end of the 16th century there was a widening of interest that blossomed in the 17th century to a wide range of styles and techniques in which blue and white plays a dominant but not exclusive role.

2809-1876