Jar
14th century (made)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
In the 14th century, when this jar was made, Chinese blue-and-white porcelain was produced specifically for the Middle Eastern market. It therefore seems likely that the jar was brought to Iran at an early date. Originally a double gourd, the jar was then cut in half , possibly at a much later period, and mounted to create two separate pieces. It was still there in the 19th century when it was purchased in Tehran by Colonel Robert J. Murdoch Smith (1835-1900), a Scottish engineer who served in the British Army. He brought large quantities of Iranian objects but also a few Chinese pieces.
Object details
| Category | |
| Object type | |
| Materials and techniques | Porcelain painted under the glaze in blue |
| Brief description | Jar made from the lower half of a double gourd vessel, China (Jingdezhen), 14th century; brass mount on the rim added in Iran, 19th century. |
| Physical description | The jar is hexagonal in section, each side treated as a separate panel defined by pairs of vertical blue lines and filled with a different floral pattern. Around the base is a narrow band of scrollwork and a wider band of lotus panels. The neck is bound with a 19th-century Iranian engraved brass collar. |
| Dimensions |
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| Style | |
| Gallery label |
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| Object history | Purchased from Robert Murdoch Smith, accessioned in 1876. This acquisition information reflects that found in the Asia Department registers, as part of a 2022 provenance research project. The jar is the bottom half of a double gourd. The vessel was exported to Iran, where, probably in the 19th century, it was cut in half at the waist. The lower half was given an engraved copper alloy collar, while the top half was re-used as the base of an iced water ewer, now in the State Museum of Oriental Art in Moscow (19 II). From the RICHARD collection. |
| Summary | In the 14th century, when this jar was made, Chinese blue-and-white porcelain was produced specifically for the Middle Eastern market. It therefore seems likely that the jar was brought to Iran at an early date. Originally a double gourd, the jar was then cut in half , possibly at a much later period, and mounted to create two separate pieces. It was still there in the 19th century when it was purchased in Tehran by Colonel Robert J. Murdoch Smith (1835-1900), a Scottish engineer who served in the British Army. He brought large quantities of Iranian objects but also a few Chinese pieces. |
| Bibliographic references |
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| Collection | |
| Accession number | 1599-1876 |
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| Record created | March 7, 2000 |
| Record URL |
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