CENTRAL IRAN, LATE 12TH/EARLY 13TH CENTURY

The unusual bulbous form of this bottle finds its counterpart in an example in the Jurjan hoard, an assemblage of ceramics which were buried around 1220 when Jurjan was threatened by the Mongols. The bottle, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum (acc.no. C.35-1978), also has the sides and neck decorated with an ascending chain motif.

A similar decorative scheme can be seen on an example in the Khalili Collection. Although that example lacks the upper part of its neck, it also has a finer style of drawing on the shoulder which is representative of the 'Kashan' style (Ernst J. Grube, Cobalt and Lustre: The First Centuries of Islamic Pottery, London, 1994, p.244, no.278). The slightly more open style of the palmettes on our example, and the fact that the decoration is generally applied directly with lustre rather than being incised into the neck, sits more comfortably with the earlier 'miniature' style of the late 12th century.