A STRIKING TIMURID BLUE AND WHITE POTTERY DISH
PERSIA, TABRIZ, 15TH CENTURY
Estimate: £3,000 - £4,000
Auction: 11 June 2025 from 10:00 BST
Description
on a short foot of shallow form with flattened rim and scalloped edge, decorated in underglaze cobalt blue on a white ground with five roses to the centre, the cavetto with repeat vegetal designs, and the rim with a Chinese-inspired wave design, three visible kiln stacking marks, with further decoration to the exterior of the rim and cavetto, verso with drilled holes for hanging, intact
Dimensions
31.5cm diameter; 5cm high
Provenance
Euphrosyne Whitaker (1862-1947).
Thence by descent.
Mrs Euphrosyne (Effie) Whitaker, nee Manuel, was a well-known collector and esteemed figure in Palermo, Sicily. She was married to Joshua Whitaker and together they built a strong legacy in Palermo, including assisting with the founding of a sports club which today is known as the football team, Palermo FC.
Footnote
Like their Mongol ancestors before them, the Timurid rulers of Iran and Central Asia enjoyed strong cultural links with China. Such a connection is clearly visible through their taste for locally-produced blue and white ceramics such as this dish. It forms part of a larger group of which the decoration and form were inspired by 15th century Chinese Ming originals. Although there were a number of production sites in both the east and west of their empire, Tabriz is known to have produced the most aesthetically and technically impressive examples (see J. Soustiel, La céramique islamique, Office du Livre: 1985, p. 216). The cusped rim and wave pattern on the rim can be seen on an early 16th century dish in the British Museum (1965,0729.1), and the foliage on the cavetto is very closely paralleled by that on a dish in the Ashmolean Museum (EA1978.1740) (see L. Golombek, Mason, R.B., and Bailey, G.A., Tamerlane’s Tableware: A New Approach to Chinoiserie Ceramics of Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Iran, Mazda Publishers in Association with Royal Ontario Museum: 1996, pp. 152, 154). A dish with a near-identical main design of five roses was sold at Sotheby’s, Arts of the Islamic World & India, 25 October 2023, lot 139.