A RARE QAJAR ENAMELLED COPPER EWER (AFTABA) WITH FIGURAL DECORATION...
A RARE QAJAR ENAMELLED COPPER EWER (AFTABA) WITH FIGURAL DECORATION
Qajar Iran, 19th century
Tall vessel with a round, bulbous body on a flared pedestal foot, the long, narrow neck with two bulb-like swellings, a domed, faceted lid with a brass finial, a long S-curved spout and a slender looping handle; the surface decorated with painted enamels in the minakari tradition; the decoration including several cartouches with courtly figures, the Shahnameh hero Rustam conversing with saints, and ancient Persian kings within lobed cartouches set against a gilded ground with gol-o bolbol (flower-and-nightingale) motifs; white bands and cartouches with black Persian script, grapevines and clusters, roses, birds, deer and flowers filling the gold and blue ground.
51.5cm high
Popular in the Qajar period, minakari flourished particularly under Fath-Ali Shah (1797–1834), for whose court some of the finest examples were produced. Court painters were commissioned to provide designs for enamelled objects and more than twenty-five artists are recorded as having worked in this medium. Enamelwork continued to be produced to a high standard in the later 19th century, even as royal patronage declined; the French traveller Julien de Rochechouart recorded more than 200 enamel craftsmen active in Tehran in the 1860s (B. W. Robinson, Islamic Art in the Keir Collection, Keir Collection 5, London, 1988, p.187).
Literature:
B. W. Robinson, Qajar Painted Enamels, in R. Pinder-Wilson, ed., Paintings from Islamic Lands, Oxford, 1969, pp. 187-204.
Provenance:
Property of a private collector.
Estimate
Time, Location
Auction House
A RARE QAJAR ENAMELLED COPPER EWER (AFTABA) WITH FIGURAL DECORATION
Qajar Iran, 19th century
Tall vessel with a round, bulbous body on a flared pedestal foot, the long, narrow neck with two bulb-like swellings, a domed, faceted lid with a brass finial, a long S-curved spout and a slender looping handle; the surface decorated with painted enamels in the minakari tradition; the decoration including several cartouches with courtly figures, the Shahnameh hero Rustam conversing with saints, and ancient Persian kings within lobed cartouches set against a gilded ground with gol-o bolbol (flower-and-nightingale) motifs; white bands and cartouches with black Persian script, grapevines and clusters, roses, birds, deer and flowers filling the gold and blue ground.
51.5cm high
Popular in the Qajar period, minakari flourished particularly under Fath-Ali Shah (1797–1834), for whose court some of the finest examples were produced. Court painters were commissioned to provide designs for enamelled objects and more than twenty-five artists are recorded as having worked in this medium. Enamelwork continued to be produced to a high standard in the later 19th century, even as royal patronage declined; the French traveller Julien de Rochechouart recorded more than 200 enamel craftsmen active in Tehran in the 1860s (B. W. Robinson, Islamic Art in the Keir Collection, Keir Collection 5, London, 1988, p.187).
Literature:
B. W. Robinson, Qajar Painted Enamels, in R. Pinder-Wilson, ed., Paintings from Islamic Lands, Oxford, 1969, pp. 187-204.
Provenance:
Property of a private collector.
Estimate
Time, Location
Auction House
