Vessels17th-18th century

Small Bowl of "Gambroon ware"

late 17th-early 18th century

Description

With its exceptionally thin potting and near-translucent, pure white fabric, this small bowl belongs to a category of fine ceramics popularly known as “Gombroon wares.” The bowl has rounded walls, a slightly everted rim, and a low foot ring glazed in the center. A small depression inside the foot ring perfectly fits the middle finger, ensuring that the bowl balances easily in the user’s hand. On the interior of the bowl, this depression forms a small boss, on or around which the underglaze painting is applied. The delicate potting is emphasized by openwork patterns pierced through the walls and filled with clear glaze, reviving a technique practiced in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The designation “Gombroon wares” reflects the impact of European trade in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These vessels were exported to Europe from an Iranian port town at the entrance to the Persian Gulf, Bandar Abbas, which was known to the European trading companies as Gombroon, Gamrun, or Gamru. From European primary sources and a handful of dated objects, it can be deduced that the production period for Gombroon wares stretched from at least the 1690s into the early 1800s. Bandar Abbas served as the terminal point of trade routes originating at Yazd and Kirman to the north and Lar, Shiraz, and Isfahan to the northwest. It has been suggested that the production site for these wares was Nain (a small town due east of Isfahan), where a similar highly vitrified fritware was made in the nineteenth century.

Classification

Vessels

Technique

Pierced

Medium

Fritware pierced and painted with blue (cobalt) and black (chromium) under clear alkali glaze

Period

Safavid period

Century

17th-18th century

Division

Asian and Mediterranean Art

Department

Department of Islamic & Later Indian Art

Dimensions

6.7 x 18.5 cm (2 5/8 x 7 5/16 in.)

Provenance

[Mansour Gallery, London, 1976], sold; to Stanford and Norma Jean Calderwood, Belmont, MA (1976-2002), gift; to Harvard Art Museums 2002.

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