Blue-and-white Bowl

Location: Iran

Materials: stonepaste ware, decorated in cobalt blue under a colourless glaze

Dimensions: 20cm (diameter)

Accession Number: POT 1911

Other Notes:

The shape of the bowl certainly derives from the early Ming period, but apart from the crisscross decoration at the rim (the Chinese ‘cash’ motif), the decoration owes very little to Chinese models. Indeed the interlacing designs first occur on 14th-century pottery from Cairo or Damascus, and their appearance in Iran and Central Asia is probably a direct consequence of Timur’s deportation of potters from Syria and Iran to work in Samarkand.

Bibliography:

J.M. Rogers, The Arts of Islam. Masterpieces from the Khalili Collection, London 2010, cat.239, p.198.