A SAFAVID BLUE AND WHITE POTTERY DISH DEPICTING A LION, PERSIA, 17TH CENTURY
Auction Closed
October 23, 04:16 PM GTNN
Estimate
8,000 - 12,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
A SAFAVID BLUE AND WHITE POTTERY DISH DEPICTING A LION, PERSIA, 17TH CENTURY
the stonepaste body of circular form with bracketed rim and cavetto moulded in relief with petalled design, painted in underglaze cobalt blue with black outlines and details featuring a large roundel with a stylised lion walking within a lush vegetal landscape, the reverse with a band of overlapping scale lappets rising from the footring enclosing a pseudo-Chinese mark
29cm. diam.
This striking dish is a fine example from a group incorporating a lionine form within differing decorative fields. Ultimately inspired by imported Chinese Ming period porcelain wares, they introduce a more patterned approach to the design, taking the Chinese naturalistic elements and transforming them into decorative patterns (see Crowe 2002, pp.117-121). A closely related example is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv.no. 24.47.4. Attributed to probably Mashhad, circa 1635, the dish in the Metropolitan Museum features two fighting lions within an almost surrealist landscape as in the present example. Another model in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, is catalogued as a 'Dish with Chinese lion dog' alluding to the combination of forms inspired to create these lionine models (inv.no. EA1978.1784).