"A KASHAN BLUE, BLACK AND WHITE GLAZED. COCKEREL HEADED POTT...

Estimate

£5,000 - £7,000

"A KASHAN BLUE, BLACK AND WHITE GLAZED. COCKEREL HEADED POTTERY EWER
PERSIA, 13TH CENTURY"

Of bulbous form, the body rising from short vertical foot to cokerel head mouth,the white ground decorated with vertical tendrils in cobalt-blue, the tapering neck painted with black thick ring terminating with a sculpted cockerel head and a slightly flared cockcomb, curved feather tail like handle, 36 cm high, 11,5 cm base dia, 20 cm dia body.


This bird-headed ewer is of a rare form which perhaps finds its genesis in Persian metalwork of the period. A comparable example is in the David Collection, Copenhagen, inv. no.ISL 23.
Underglaze-painted vessels such as the present lot were contemporary with Kashan lustre ware. Often the decoration was done with cobalt-blue and black pigments -
The model may have been Sassanian metalwork or Tang Dynasty phoenix-head ewers, though an indigenous tradition can also not be ruled out (Oliver Watson, Ceramics of Iran, London, 2020, p.178, cat.no. 91).
Other examples of this form with underglaze painting include two examples decorated only with horizontal stripes in the Sarikhani collection (Oliver Watson, op.cit., p.297, cat.no.151) and in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (acc.no. 19.68.2).
A further example with similar body design can be seen Bernard Rackham, Islamic Pottery and Italian Maiolica, London, 1959, no.7, pl.5