Fritware dish, painted in blue under a transparent glaze
Iran, Tabriz?; end of 15th century
H: 6.4; Diam: 38.7 cm
We still do not know much about where Persian pottery from the 15th century was produced – whether most was made in the regions that were dominated by the Timurids, or whether there were other centers as well. This dish belongs to “the precise group,” which was given this name because of its fine decoration. There are arguments that point to its having been made in Turkmen Tabriz – a city that was an important art center under several dynasties.
Persian pottery copied the most elaborate Chinese blue-and-white porcelain. This dish, for example, is decorated with a central phoenix surrounded by nine doves and six ducks on a background of Far Eastern clouds.
Inv. no. 214/2006
Published in:
Charles K. Wilkinson: Iranian ceramics, Asia House, New York 1963, pl. 79;
Ernst J. Grube: “Notes on the decorative arts of the Timurid period” in Antonio Forte, Luigi Polese Remaggi, Maurizio Taddei (eds.): Gururajamanjarika: studi in onore di Giuseppe Tucci, Napoli 1974, vol. 1, fig. 22;
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 1996, pl. 62, p. 219 and pp. 102, 148, 160 note 20;
Linda Komaroff (ed.): Dining with the Sultan: the fine art of feasting, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles 2023, cat. 53a, pp. 208-209;
