IRAN, 15TH CENTURY

The design for this bottle compares closely to Yuan Chinese porcelain original motifs. The main lotus band, the reserved band of floral design, the cloud-collar panels and the upper pointed leaf-motifs all appear on Chinese vessels from the 14th century. Even the minor band below the cloud-collars is drawn very similarly to the Chinese original (for various elements please see Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray, Istanbul, London, 1986, pp.489-503). The only design that is more difficult to parallel precisely in the Chinese originals is the presence of the large drop-shaped cartouches within the reserved band, each containing a palmette without stem. It seems probable that these are interpretations of a design found on a few Yuan dishes where a reserved band contains white drop-shaped or palmette-shaped panels within each of which is a moulded palmette. An outstanding example of this design, whose floral elements around the drop shaped panels is very similar to that found here, was in the Shrine at Ardebil and is now in the National Museum, Tehran (John Alexander Pope, Chinese Porcelains from the Ardebil Shrine, London 1981 reprint, pl.22).

A fragment of a dish decorated with very similar motifs to those on the reserve decoration band seen here was excavated together with kiln material at Nishapur and is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Lisa Golombek, Robert B. Mason and Gauvin A. Bailey, Tamerlane's Tableware, Ontario, 1996, pl.32, p.192). A blue and white pottery bottle attributed to 15th century Syria, and now in the David Collection, copies a very similar Chinese prototype, showing the spread and popularity of such imports within the Islamic world of the period (Kjeld von Folsach, Torben Lundbaek and Peder Mortensen (eds.), Sultan, Shah and Great Mughal, exhibition catalogue, Copenhagen, 1996, no.297, p.322).