ILKHANID IRAN, LATE 13TH/EARLY 14TH CENTURY

This is a spectacular example of a large-scale Ilkhanid lustre dish. Although there has been some restoration, the drawing on the original elements is extremely elegant and precise - the face of the central rider and his horse, their elaborate spotted coats, and the moon-faced musicians that decorate the rim, for instance, are all drawn with a beautiful finesse. Ilkhanid figural lustre, particularly on this scale, is rare. The lustre here is beautifully dark and intense, and the drawing finds close comparison with that on a number of tiles that are typically dated late 13^th or early 14^th century. The figures, for instance, bear resemblance to those that decorate a number of tiles in the Museum of the Shrine of Fatima in Qumm, one dated AH 661/1263 AD and another attributed to the latter part of the 13^th century (Arthur Upham Pope, ‘New Findings in Persian Ceramics of the Islamic Period’, Bulletin of the American Institute for Iranian Art and Archaeology, Vol.5, no.2, December 1937, figs.5 and 6, p.155 and 157). Our mounted horseman also finds stylistic resemblance to images from the Diez Album, originally from an early fourteenth century copy of Rashid al-Din’s Jami’ al-Tawarikh. The depiction of the horse, the horseman’s turban and the wide rounded faces of our figures all bear resemblance to those of a folio depicting a Mongol Travelling (Diez A fol.71,S.53; published The Legacy of Genghis Khan, exhibition catalogue, New York, 2002, p.43, fig.39, cat.no.22). The heavy lotus-like palmettes, also find comparison on later 13^th century tiles, including those on the star tile which is lot 31 in this sale. Although there are numerous tiles that survive from this later period of lustre production, there are fewer vessels and even less on this grand scale, which allows for a real strength of design. Another very large Ilkhanid lustre dish, very different in design but with a similar overall feeling, was previously in the Kevorkian collection, and offered for sale at Sotheby’s, London, October 2011, lot 216.