- Provenance
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To 1903
Dikran G. Kelekian (1868-1951), Cairo, Egypt, Paris, France, and New York to 1903 [1]From 1903 to 1919
Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), purchased from Dikran G. Kelekian in 1903 [2]From 1920
Freer Gallery of Art, gift of Charles Lang Freer in 1920 [3]Notes:
[1] See Original Pottery List, L. 1263, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives.
[2] See note 1.
[3] The original deed of Charles Lang Freer's gift was signed in 1906. The collection was received in 1920 upon the completion of the Freer Gallery.
- Previous Owner(s) and Custodian(s)
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Charles Lang Freer 1854-1919
Dikran Garabed Kelekian (C.L. Freer source) 1868-1951
- Description
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Plate, large with a flaring marly; low foot.
Clay: sandy, buff.
Glaze: transparent silicious with tinges of green on the under side; coarsely crackled and pitted. Decoration: painted in pale red, brown green, blue and yellow on a white slip under glaze.This polychrome-painted plate has a revolving central rosette with stems, blossoms and leaves decorating the surrounding area. The rim shows a loosely drawn floral scroll with identical buds, blossoms and twisting leaves. The exterior is plain.
The underglaze colors are quite subdued and murky, and are applied in a carefree manner often running over the black outlines. The galze has a slight greenish tinge and is crackled and pitted.
This example belongs to a group of polychrome pottery generally attributed to the town of Kubachi situated in northwestern Iran. The designs on this gorup are often outlined in black and painted with dark-blue, dull-green, brownish-red, pale-yellow, purple and turquoise pigments. A majority of the pieces represents male and female figures or animals amidst floral motifs. There also exists a number of tiles executed in the same manner.
The red and yellow pigments in this plate are thickly applied, recalling the red used by Turkish potters. Although there is a remote resemblance to polychrome Iznik wares, both the technique and drawing are inferior to sixteenth-century Ottoman pottery, and reveal a completely different style and aesthetic approach.
Long, black twisting leaves, branches with rounded leaves and five-petaled blossoms seem to be part of the common vocabulary of this type of ware (compare with examples in Pope, Survey, pls. 790-794; Lane, Later Islamic Pottery, pls.54 and 55).
- Published References
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- Dr. Esin Atil. Ceramics from the World of Islam. Exh. cat. Washington, 1973. cat. 89, pp. 192-193.
- Collection Area(s)
- Arts of the Islamic World
- Web Resources
- Google Cultural Institute
- CC0 - Creative Commons (CC0 1.0)
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This image is in the public domain (free of copyright restrictions). You can copy, modify, and distribute this work without contacting the Smithsonian. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's Terms of Use page.
-
CC0 - Creative Commons (CC0 1.0)
This image is in the public domain (free of copyright restrictions). You can copy, modify, and distribute this work without contacting the Smithsonian. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's Terms of Use page.
Usage Conditions Apply
There are restrictions for re-using this image. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's Terms of Use page.
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