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PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE AMERICAN COLLECTIONLots 27-43 come from a Private American collection. They were all excavated with legal licenses in Iran in the 1930s and 40s and were brought to America at a time when Europe was becoming more troubled, and America was considered the marketplace with the greatest potential. The supply of serious works of art, coupled with active promotion by scholars such as Arthur Upham Pope, meant that interest in collecting Persian art rapidly grew, with museums building up representative collections as well as private individuals forming collections of the highest quality.

A LARGE KASHAN LUSTRE POTTERY DISH

CENTRAL IRAN, LATE 12TH CENTURY

Details

A LARGE KASHAN LUSTRE POTTERY DISH
CENTRAL IRAN, LATE 12TH CENTURY
The interior decorated with gold lustre on a white ground with a central roundel with a figure on horseback, surrounded by eight figures between trees in the cavetto, the exterior plain blue, '207' written in black ink on the foot, repaired breaks and areas of restoration
13 ¼in. (33.6cm.) diam.

Provenance

American collection by 1971

Further details

Some countries prohibit or restrict the purchase and/or import of Iranian-origin property. Bidders must familiarise themselves with any laws or shipping restrictions that apply to them before bidding on these lots. For example, the USA prohibits dealings in and import of Iranian-origin “works of conventional craftsmanship” (such as carpets, textiles, decorative objects, and scientific instruments) without an appropriate licence. Christie’s has a general OFAC licence which, subject to compliance with certain conditions, would enable a buyer to import this type of lot into the USA. If you intend to use Christie’s licence, please contact us for further information before you bid.

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

Both this large dish and the previous lot belong to a group of Kashan lustre ceramics which Oliver Watson describes as exhibiting ‘the miniature style’. Together with polychrome mina’i ware, they are believed to have taken inspiration from pre-Mongol manuscript illustration, almost all examples of which have now been lost. Some of the main features of this style which Watson identifies are the ‘detailed treatment’ given to clothes, a landscape ‘invariably’ populated by chequered trees encircled by a ‘halo’ of dots, and an overall arrangement of motifs in individual panels (Oliver Watson, Persian Lustre Ware, London, 1985, p.68).

The arrangement of motifs on this design – with a ring of seated figures encircling a mounted figure – reflects a spectacular dish in the Art Institute of Chicago which is dated Safar AH 587/March 1191 AD (acc.no. 1927.414). It is likely to also be of similar period to a dish in the Khalili collection, with three figures in the centre, the faces of which bear a close resemblance to those on our dish (Ernst J. Grube, “Iranian stone-paste pottery of the Saljuq period”, in Cobalt and Lustre: the First Centuries of Islamic Pottery, London, 1994, pp.234, cat.no. 264).

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