Lot Essay
This shape was probably inspired by Middle Eastern metalwork and would have been likely to have been made for Muslim patrons. Very similar sprinklers can be found in several museum collections: one in the Victoria and Albert Museum, is illustrated by W. B. Honey, op.cit., 1927, pl.117, fig.a; another in the Museum het Princessehof Museum, Leeuwarden, is illustrated by B. Harrison, op.cit., 1985, p.78, fig.83; a third is in the Museum of Anastácio Gonçalves, Lisbon, illustrated by M. A. Pinto de Matos, Chinese Export Porcelain, London, 1996, no.136, pp.236 and 237, where the author states that yet another example is in the Museum fr Kunsthandwerk, Frankfurt. In the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul there is a similar sprinkler with the crescent-shaped mouth missing, illustrated by R. Krahl and J. Ayers, Chinese Ceramics, A Complete Catalogue, 1986, vol.III, p.1262, no.3224. It is interesting to compare the 19th century Ottoman gilt metal mounts with similar crescent-shaped terminals on two celadon-glazed bottles also in the Topkapi Saray Museum, ibid., nos.2774 and 2775, p.924 (colour plate).