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Identification and Creation

Object Number
2002.50.77
Title
Small Vase with Stripes
Classification
Vessels
Work Type
vessel
Date
19th-20th century
Places
Creation Place: Middle East, Iran
Period
Modern
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/165421

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Fritware painted in blue (cobalt) under clear alkali glaze
Technique
Underglazed, painted
Dimensions
9.2 cm x 8.4 cm (3 5/8 x 3 5/16 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
[Hadji Baba Rabbi House of Antiquities, Teheran, before 1973], sold; to Stanford and Norma Jean Calderwood, Belmont, MA (by 1973-2002), gift; to Harvard Art Museums, 2002.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, The Norma Jean Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art
Accession Year
2002
Object Number
2002.50.77
Division
Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact
am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
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Descriptions

Description
This small vase is decorated with vertical cobalt-blue stripes under a transparent glaze that ends above the foot. Probably due to an accident in the kiln, part of another vessel is attached to the vase at its widest point. To judge from the many surviving blue-striped vessels in a range of shapes, this form of decoration was highly popular on early thirteenth-century Iranian ceramics. Its appearance on this vase suggests a deliberate revival.

Published Catalogue Text: In Harmony: The Norma Jean Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art , written 2013
142

Small vase with stripes
Probably Iran, 19th or 20th century[1]
Fritware painted in blue (cobalt) under clear alkali glaze
9.2 cm × 8.4cm (3 5/8 × 3 5/16 in.)
2002.50.77

This small vase is decorated with vertical cobalt-blue stripes under a transparent glaze that ends above the foot. Probably due to an accident in the kiln, part of another vessel is attached to the vase at its widest point. To judge from the many surviving blue-striped vessels in a range of shapes, this form of decoration was highly popular on early thirteenth-century Iranian ceramics.[2] Its appearance on this vase suggests a deliberate revival.

Ayşin Yoltar-Yıldırım

[1] The vase was last fired less than 200 years ago, according to the results of thermoluminescence analysis carried out by Oxford Authentication Ltd. in 2011.
[2] See, for instance, Cort et al. 2000, 82; Grube 1994, 201.

Publication History

  • Jessica Chloros, "An Investigation of Cobalt Pigment on Islamic Ceramics at the Harvard Art Museums" (thesis (certificate in conservation), Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies, 2008), Unpublished, pp. 1-41 passim
  • Mary McWilliams, ed., In Harmony: The Norma Jean Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art, exh. cat., Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2013), p. 268, cat. 142, ill.

Exhibition History

  • Closely Focused, Intensely Felt: Selections from the Norma Jean Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 08/07/2004 - 01/02/2005
  • Overlapping Realms: Arts of the Islamic World and India, 900-1900, Harvard University Art Museums, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 12/02/2006 - 03/23/2008

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu