Safavid Monochrome Bottle

Probably Isfahan, Iran, First half of the 17th century
Glazed, moulded fritware
16.5 cm high, 12 cm wide, 6.5 cm deep

Stock no.: A5960
Provenance: Private collection, purchased in the UK in the 1970s.

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A small, flattened bottle made of fritware, moulded with split-palmette arabesques under a green-blue copper glaze. It belongs to a group identified by Arthur Lane, dating to the first half of the 17th century and probably made in Isfahan, Iran.¹

Examples with similar arabesque decoration are held in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (accession no. EAX.1615; dated 17th century) and the St. Louis Art Museum (accession no. 924:1920; dated 16th or early 17th century). Another, with a more ornate floral pattern is in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London (accession no. 2492&A-1876; 1600-1650). Others of the same flattened form but with moulded figural decoration under the glaze are held in the Louvre, Paris (accession no. OA 7780; Isfahan, 1600-1650), the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art, Honolulu (inventory no. 48.36; Isfahan, 17th century), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (accession no. 1988.247; mid-17th century, probably Isfahan), and the David Collection, Copenhagen (accession no. 40/2001; first half of the 17th century).

[1] Arthur Lane. Later Islamic Pottery. London: Faber & Faber, 1957, p. 109, plate 97 b, c, d.

^{n.b. accession nos are clickable links}

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