Bottle

Bottle

Although opaque yellow glaze had been in use since the early seventeenth century, the potter of this bottle has used a yellow-stained transparent one as the ground for the ruby luster ornament. The bottle’s sides are fluted, and a thin line of underglaze blue runs along the groove between each panel. On the neck above the flutes, roughly drawn trees and flowering plants grow out of a grassy ground indicated by a wide luster band. The decoration on the flutes consists of legless ducks reserved on a luster ground; a sinuous vine with poppy flowers and leafy stalks; a tall stalk with blossoms; leaves and flowers, including a large, nearly circular spray; more birds on a luster ground, such as ducks, a long-tailed diving bird, and a pigeon; a sinuous stalk with leaves and flowers; a flowering stem bordered by luster zigzags; flowers, large leaves, a nearly circular spray, and a large iris. The simple silver mount, possibly the work of a European or other Western silversmith, has a hinged cover and small knob at the top.[1]

The precise dating of Safavid lusterware is hampered by a paucity of dated objects and the problematic relationship of this group of pottery to vessels found in late seventeenth-century Persian paintings.[2] While fluted, long-necked bottles appear in paintings, they are usually depicted as metal wares. Finally, although affinities between the luster decoration and manuscript borders painted in gold have been noted, the connection is more generic than specific. An early inventory of Moore’s collection suggests that he acquired this vessel from British collector George Salting, who bequeathed the bulk of his Islamic ceramics collection to the South Kensington Museum upon his death in 1909.[3]

Sheila R. Canby in [Higgins Harvey 2021]

Footnotes:

1. The mount is unmarked. The quality of the workmanship is far less skillful than that found in the mount of cat. 132 in this volume and is not consistent with work produced at Tiffany & Co.

2. Lane, Arthur. Later Islamic Pottery: Persia, Syria, Egypt, Turkey. Faber Monographs on Pottery and Porcelain. London: Faber and Faber, 1957, p. 104, mentions a bottle dated 1084/1673 that had been published in 1893 but was lost by 1957.

3. The bottle probably corresponds to no. 2695, described as "Flagon, [faience], 15th. century, No. 478 in catalogue of Burlington Fine Arts Club—exhibited by Mr. Salting 1886 [sic], fluted brown and yellew [sic] lustre, bird decoration, metal top, stand"; "Complete List, E. C. Moore Collection, Belonging to the Dr. I. H. Hall Office," undated [1891–96], Edward C. Moore Collection files, Office of the Secretary Records, MMA Archives. The 1885 exhibition of Persian and Islamic art at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, was considered a watershed moment of Western collecting of Islamic art; see Illustrated Catalogue of Specimens of Persian and Arab Art Exhibited in 1885. Exh. cat. London: Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1885, p. 55, no. 478. Moore owned a copy of this publication and possibly acquired other objects that were exhibited; see no. 2792 in "Complete List, E. C. Moore Collection."

Edward C. Moore (American), New York (until d. 1891; bequeathed to MMA)

Dimand, Maurice S. A Handbook of Mohammedan Decorative Arts. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1930. pp. 144, 148, ill. fig. 82 (b/w).

Pope, Arthur Upham, ed. Survey of Persian Art: The Ceramic Arts, Calligraphy and Epigraphy. Vol. IV. London: Oxford University Press, 1938. vol. V, ill. pl. 796C (b/w).

Dimand, Maurice S. A Handbook of Muhammadan Art. 2nd rev. and enl. ed. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1944. pp. 208–9, ill. fig. 137 (b/w).

Beyazit, Deniz, Maryam Ekhtiar, and Sheila R. Canby. Collecting Inspiration : Edward C. Moore at Tiffany & Co., edited by Medill Higgins Harvey. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2021. no. 133, pp. 198–99, ill.