Skip to main content
Lot 189

A large Khorasan bronze Ewer
Persia, 12th Century

10 April 2008, 14:30 BST
London, New Bond Street

£10,000 - £15,000

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

How to sell

Looking for a similar item?

Our Islamic and Indian Art specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.

Find your local specialist

A large Khorasan bronze Ewer
Persia, 12th Century

of globular shape and fluted body on a circular foot-ring, tall contracting neck with free-moving rings attached, upward-pointing pierced high spout, strap handle surmounted by a small bird finial, with varied incised decoration, of the sixteen flutes, four with flattened surfaces with elaborate decoration including kufic inscriptions flanked by floral roundels, further inscriptions and roundels circling the shoulder
35 cm. high

Footnotes

The inscriptions read: Round the shoulder, "With Good-fortune Blessing, Generosity and Wealth"; on the ribs in cursive,"Blessing....Generosity"; and in kufic: "Work of 'Uthman".

This magnificent ewer, which is cast in bronze, relates to a number of others with either a globular or a fluted body. They all have upward pointing beak like spouts and lugs on the side of the neck for attachment of rings. The group can be dated through comparison with lustre pottery of similar form, datable to the second half of the 12th Century (for example Oliver Watson, Persian Lustre Ware, London, 1985, fig.45). For another comparison in the Keir Collection, see Geza Fehervari, Islamic Metalwork of the Eighth to the Fifteenth Century in the Keir Collection, London, 1976, pl. 15,no. 51. A similar ewer was sold at Sotheby's (Arts of the Islamic World, 13th April 2000, lot 64).

Additional information