IRAN, LATE 16TH CENTURY

A very similar basin is in the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv.no.768-1894, A.S. Melikian-Chirvani, Islamic Metalwork from the Iranian World. 8-18th Centuries, London, 1982, pp.301-02, fig.132). In his description of that example, Melikian-Chirvani writes that the shape is derived from a model in use in Iran from the mid-13th to mid-14th century. The form then appears again in the late 15th century, and is seen in miniature painting in the early 16th century (Melikian-Chirvani, op.cit., p.301). He dates the Victoria and Albert basin to circa 1588 on the basis of the similarity of its decoration to that of a dated shamdan in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. Like our basin the Victoria and Albert example has a similar stellar motif to the centre, reminiscent of a shamsa in contemporaneous manuscript illumination.