Oliver White
Head of Department
Lot 68R
A Safavid figural tinned copper bowl signed by Ibrahim Persia, 16th Century
11 June 2020, 11:00 BST
London, New Bond Street£2,000 - £3,000
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A Safavid figural tinned copper bowl signed by Ibrahim
Persia, 16th Century
Persia, 16th Century
of deep rounded form on a short splayed foot, profusely engraved with various figural scenes to the body including hunting scenes and court scenes within architectural settings, the rim with inscription-filled cartouches interspersed by stars containing hares and other quadrupeds, a band of suspended palmettes to the base
14.5 cm. diam.
14.5 cm. diam.
Footnotes
Provenance
The collection of Alexander H. Morton (1942-2011).
Private UK collection.
Inscriptions: four Persian couplets and signed as salam 'ala ibrahim ('Peace be upon Abraham'). The phrase from the Qur'an, Sura XXXVII, (al-safat), part of verse 109, is usually used as signature by artists with the name "Ibrahim" or "Muhammad Ibrahim".
The influence of similarly decorated early Safavid bowls can be found on North Indian metalwork from the early 17th century. For examples, see M. Zebrowski, Gold, Silver and Bronze From Mughal India, London, 1997, plates 581a, b, 582.
Alexander Morton, universally known as Sandy, was a uniquely gifted scholar and linguist. Born in India his father Kenneth Morton CIE OBE was a member of the Indian Civil Service. His grandfather was Harold Hargreaves, who succeeded Sir John Marshall as Director of the Indian Archaeological Survey. The family left India in 1947 and settled in Cambridge. Sandy attended Rugby specialising in Classics, and then University College, Oxford. After obtaining a First in Classical Mods, he switched to take a final degree in Persian and Arabic. In 1964, supported by a scholarship, he left England for Iran and commenced work at the British Institute of Persian Studies in Tehran. He returned to London to study for a PhD at the School of Oriental and African Studies under Professor Ann Lambton, on Persian Travel Diaries of the 19th Century but never finished, lured back to Iran, where he became Assistant Director at BIPS.
Morton acquired a considerable knowledge of coins in Iran and on his return to England started work at the British Museum cataloguing their collection of Middle-Eastern glass Stamps. He remained in close contact with the British Museum throughout his life. He then moved to SOAS where he was appointed Senior Lecturer of the Persian Section of the Near and Middle East Department.
Sandy's books and articles covered a wide variety of topics including numismatics, the Ardebil Shrine, the Safavid dynasty and Persian poetry. Perhaps his best known publication is A Catalogue of Early Islamic Glass Stamps in the British Museum, published in 1985, the definitive work on early Islamic weights and stamps.