Translation problems and finding fakes

After a email chain inquiry with the oriental museum, it has transpired that my pottery may not have quite so clear an origin as expected.

Dear Dr. Kouhi-Esfahani,

As part of my Objects of Desire module we are required to study an object in depth and create an audio-visual podcast about it. I have selected an Iranian bowl and have been put in contact with you to help translate the inscription on the bowl to help me further my research.
Is this something that you would be able to do if I provided some photographs?

Your help would be much appreciated,Kind regards,
Maddy

Hi Maddy:Please send me photo's of the bowl so I see how to help you.
Best

Hi Dr. Marzieh, 
Thanks for your quick reply, I have attached the images I have to the email. 
Thank you again, 
Maddy  

Dear Maddy:Neither the writing on the bowl nor the bowl itself is Persian. I've sent the photos to an art specialist in Iran last night and he confirmed that the bowl is not Perian/Iranian.He said he might be able to consult some senior professionals about the likely origins of the artefact, but I won't promise as he is a very busy person.I'm sorry that I was not able to help more positively.
Best

Dear Dr. Marzieh, 
Thank you for letting me know. It would be amazing for my research if he was able to but I understand that it may not be possible. 
Thanks again and kind regards, 
Maddy  

Dear Maddy:They have asked if they could have a more clear picture especially from the inside of the bowl. They may then be able to help.
Best

Dear Dr. Marzieh, 
I have attached all the images that I have to this email. 
Thanks and best wishes, 
Maddy 

I am eagerly waiting her response, but in the mean time have decided to look into fakes and replicas to try and uncover what may have been the real provenance of my bowl. The following is an excerpt from a book about forgeries in Islamic pottery.

The forging of Islamic pottery - that is the deliberate making of copies with intent to deceive - has a surprisingly long history. The first piece to be considered as such - a turquoise-glazed jar with moulded decoration - entered the V&A in 1876, and it prompted immediate debate: a note in the register reads 'Mr Caspar Clarke lately returned from Persia says that about a dozen jars of this design were made in Persia about 30 years ago for a French gentleman, and that he knows the man who made the moulds.' This however did not prevent the Museum from acquiring in 1884, a suspiciously similar turquoise jar with moulded decoration of figures and mounted riders. It came as part of the extensive and highly revered Castellani collection, for the not insignificant sum of £25/10/- the cataloguing was however cautious and no date was given (fig.12). And again, in 1928 another jar, with the inscription 'made by Hared' and dated 688 H/1289 CE, was offered as a gift, and unquestioningly accepted as genuine. To us now, each piece seems absurdly worse than the last, though each apparently raised less and less suspicion.

An illustration of how forgers have to keep up with the growth of knowledge of their clients is afford by two forgeries of Sultanabad ware. The first, a piece acquired by the V&A in 1913 is, to modern eyes, laughably inept: flimsy material (quite like much Qajar pottery), weak, misunderstood shape, and poor draftsmanship of an atypical design - everything speaks against it. Yet it was accessioned without comment for £25 as a genuine 13th century piece. This lack of judgement is surprising considering how much good genuine Sultanabad was then known. Compare this with the forgery identified by TL testing of a piece formerly in the Barlow collection, not at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Suspicion raised perhaps because it was 'too good to be true' - too big, in too good a condition, too clean and spritely in its drawing. Only after confirmation of its recent manufacture do we start to notice, for example, a suspicious uniformity in the drawing, a laborious detailing of the design ... the forgers had learnt much in little over half a century.

The mass of fraudulent pieces of Garrus ware are, in every interesting way, forgeries, though technically they may be classified as fakes. The fact that the basic bowl may be an innocent piece of recent peasant-ware - a yoghurt bowl, or the like, perhaps - does not redeem the decoration now found on them. Though the drawing style alone is sufficient to condemn many of them, detailed observation shows how new designs were cut through the original glaze into the clay body, and a new glaze applied, sometimes to the whole piece though often to the newly cut decoration alone. In these cases there is a remarkable contrast between the textures of the two glazes, such as is never seen on original work where a single glaze covers the entire surface. This calls into question a large jar in the V&A where there appears to be a definite second application of glaze over the top half of the body; and where the style and manner of carving of the main decoration of animals and inscription stand at odds with other carved decoration at the neck; and where the inscription is uniquely and inexplicably upside-down. This perhaps started life as a handsome, but simple storage jar with a brief band of chip-carved decoration round the neck. Other tell-tale signs of reworking include splashes or runs of colour in the original glaze which no not flow across the newly cut areas. There was great excitement amongst collectors for these wares in the 1920s and 1930s when fantastic theories about their Zoroastrian or 'Gabri' fire-worshipping association appeared to cloud any connoisseurly judgment.

The forging of ceramics implies considerable commitment of resources to create new articles from scratch, and it is therefore not surprising that forgeries tend to come in groups.

Source: Watson, 2004, 523

There was no mention in my research about different languages or incorrect translations so it seems to me that there is still a chance that the provenance of this bowl should not be in doubt. I will be in touch with other translators in order to further clarify the situation but am hopeful for now that this may have just been a mistake.