Arts of the Islamic World and India

A Timurid turquoise pottery bowl with cloud bands, Persia, 15th century

Margin Scheme

Auction Closed

April 24, 03:45 PM GMT

Estimate

20,000 - 30,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

of deep rounded form on short, truncated foot, painted in black under a transparent turquoise glaze with concentric Chinese cloud band designs to interior and exterior, the base delineated by circular bands of squared patterns both in the cavetto and underside, old collector's label to underside of foot

22.3cm. diam.

11cm. height

Please note that there may be restrictions on the import of property of Iranian origin into the USA and some or all member countries of the Gulf Co-operation Council. Any buyers planning to import property of Iranian origin into any of these countries should satisfy themselves of the relevant import regime. Sotheby's will not assist buyers with the shipment of such items into the USA or the GCC. In addition, FedEx and US courier services will no longer carry Iranian-origin goods to any location. Any shipment services would need to be provided by a Fine Art shipping company.

Ex-private collection, Lyon, early 20th century

This bowl is a rare example of a stylistic subtype from a wider group of fifteenth-century Persian pottery painted in black under a turquoise transparent glaze. Commonly known as ‘Kubachi’ wares, after a town in the Caucasus where many fifteenth and sixteenth-century dishes were found in the late nineteenth century, the group is distinguishable by the hang-holes drilled in the foot ring and the encrusted dirt visible on the reverse (Watson 2020, p.253).

The best known specimens of the group usually display medallions of floral patterns with incised scrollwork, some bearing dates that point to a production date in the fifteenth century (see a bowl formerly in the Kelekian collection, dated 873 AH/1468 AD, published in A. Lane, Later Islamic Pottery, London, 1957, pl.20A, alongside a bowl in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. no.17.120.70). The present turquoise bowl, however, relates closely to an example in the Museum of Islamic Art, Doha (PO.93.1999), one in the Khalili Collection (inv. no.pot.878), and another published in Ceramics of Iran (Watson, op.cit., p.353, cat.182), both displaying cloud-like patterns. Another fifteeenth-century bowl in the Musée du Louvre presents a strikingly similar decoration on the reverse painted under a darker, greenish glaze (inv. no.AD 13778).

Timur was known to champion strong trade relations with neighbouring powers, and the period of Timurid dynastic rule witnessed an increased stream of artistic exchange with China contributing to the Timurid Renaissance (T. Lentz, & G. Lowry, Timur and the Princely Vision : Persian art and culture in the fifteenth century¸1989, pp.106-8). The cloud band design on the present bowl is unprecedented on glazed potteries from the early Timurid period and can thus be associated with the growing export of Ming wares to the Middle East in the fifteenth century.