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Lot Essay
The inscriptions reads:
Round the neck: al-sultan al-a'zam wa al-khaqan al-mu'azzam mawla muluk al-'arab wa al-'ajam zill allah fi [al-ard] (The most Great Sultan, and exalted Emperor, the Lord of the kings of the Arabs and Persians, the shadow of God on [earth]). In the cartouches, round the body, Persian verses (not fully deciphered).
An almost identical jug, which retains its handle, is in the Tareq Rajab Museum, Kuwait (Nabil Safwat, The Harmony of Letters, exhibition catalogue, Singapore, 1997, p.110). The inscriptions on both are very similar in calligraphy to those on a bowl in the Victoria and Albert Museum which bears a date of 945/1538 indicating that these two jugs may well be products of early Safavid rather than late Timurid Iran (A. S. Melikian-Chirvani, Islamic Metalwork from the Iranian World, 8th-18th centuries, London, 1982, no.124, pp.288-290). A further closely related jug is in the Hermitage Museum (Linda Komaroff, The Golden Disc of Heaven, Costa Mesa, 1992, no.33, pp.225 and 228).
Round the neck: al-sultan al-a'zam wa al-khaqan al-mu'azzam mawla muluk al-'arab wa al-'ajam zill allah fi [al-ard] (The most Great Sultan, and exalted Emperor, the Lord of the kings of the Arabs and Persians, the shadow of God on [earth]). In the cartouches, round the body, Persian verses (not fully deciphered).
An almost identical jug, which retains its handle, is in the Tareq Rajab Museum, Kuwait (Nabil Safwat, The Harmony of Letters, exhibition catalogue, Singapore, 1997, p.110). The inscriptions on both are very similar in calligraphy to those on a bowl in the Victoria and Albert Museum which bears a date of 945/1538 indicating that these two jugs may well be products of early Safavid rather than late Timurid Iran (A. S. Melikian-Chirvani, Islamic Metalwork from the Iranian World, 8th-18th centuries, London, 1982, no.124, pp.288-290). A further closely related jug is in the Hermitage Museum (Linda Komaroff, The Golden Disc of Heaven, Costa Mesa, 1992, no.33, pp.225 and 228).