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.

Technique

As the colour of my object was one of the first things that grabbed my attention, researching the history around the technique of this kind of pottery was one of my first research questions. And the information that I have come across has been fascinating. 

Though there are numerous colours that can be made from metallic ores, their behaviour in conjunction with the glaze and the heat of the kiln has always been hard to manage. The heat necessary to fire the pottery and fuse it to the glaze historically tended to either completely ruin the colour or affect its stability. Until the beginning of the 12th century, this meant that a very limited palette of colours was available. However, at the advent of this new age, they discovered that if a pot was fired and glazed first at a high temperature, they could then apply more layers of the less stable colours on top and fire again at a lower temperature - vastly opening up the range of hues available to them. 

Whilst double firing had been practised elsewhere in lustre painting since the 9th century, they were somewhat surprisingly only adopted by Persian potters later and were never adopted in Syria or Egypt. 

There were two ways of using low-temperature colours. In the first, the haft rang or 'seven colour' process described by Abulqasim of Kashan, parts of the design were painted in clear pale blue, purple and green on or under the raw glaze before the pot received its first firing; black outlines and other supplementary colours mixed with a vitreous flux were then added and fixed in one or more further firings at a lower temperature.  Conspicuous among the supplementary colours were a shiny black, chestnut, Pompeian red, white, and leaf gilding. For this composite technique the name minai (enamel) is now used by dealers and collectors. Exquisite effects were often obtained by using as ground an opaque glaze stained pale turquoise blue - the colour of a hedge-sparrow's egg (pictured), one of the rarest and most surprising in nature. We also find lilac tones and a very deep, resonant blue. 

Potters of built up relief in parts to be guilded, or modelled figures themselves in high relief. Where pottery was constantly travelling to and fro between painter and kiln, these areas almost built themselves up. From my object, I can see clearly how the potter has taken advantage of the new palette available to them, and with beautiful use of gold leaf as well.

Rayy, Kashan, and perhaps Sava are the main locations where the minai technique was used, although these schools cannot be isolated with any certainty, even by the most knowledgeable art collectors. Early pieces, especially though which were experimental, show mini colours with a combination of lustre painting in the Kashan style. One also has to be aware that the dates printed on mini vessels are often fraudulent to take advantage of the arts market. However, it seems clear that this kind of pottery originated in the last quarter of the 12th centre and had past by the time of the Mongol invasions in the 1220's. 

But Abulqasim and a later commentator on his work also refer to a lajvardian ware still made at the end of the thirteenth century. This can be identified with the pottery and tiles painted over the glaze in a limited palette of opaque red, black, white and gold leaf, the latter being cut into angular shapes before application. Glazes or deep rich blue (lajvard) and turquoise were favourite ground colours, and the designs often show the Chinese lotus, phoenix and dragon that became popular under the Ilkhanid Mongol rulers. In shapes the lajvardina wares resemble the lustre and underglaze painted wares of the Sultanabad district; they tend to be clumsy in potting and uninteresting in ornament. The coarse and greyish body material is also of inferior quality.

Source: Lane, 1947

Bibliography

Websites:

Aaron, D. (n.d.). Exceptional Minai Bowl. [online] David Aaron. Available at: https://davidaaron.com/artworks/minai-bowl/ [Accessed 14 Apr. 2019].

CAIS (n.d.). The Homepage of the Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies (CAIS)©. [online] Cais-soas.com. Available at: http://www.cais-soas.com [Accessed 14 Apr. 2019].

Encyclopedia Iranica (2019). CALLIGRAPHY – Encyclopaedia Iranica. [online] Iranicaonline.org. Available at: http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/calligraphy [Accessed 14 Apr. 2019].

Komaroff, L. (2001). The Art of the Ilkhanid Period (1256–1353). [online] Metmuseum.org. Available at: https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/ilkh/hd_ilkh.htm [Accessed 14 Apr. 2019].

Met Museum (2019). Vegetal Patterns in Islamic Art. [online] Metmuseum.org. Available at: https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/vege/hd_vege.htm [Accessed 14 Apr. 2019].

Met Museum (2018). Possible Passage to England. [online] Metmuseum.org. Available at: https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/isac/hd_isac.htm - possible passage into England? [Accessed 14 Apr. 2019].

Met Museum (2001). The Nature of Islamic Art. [online] Metmuseum.org. Available at: https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/orna/hd_orna.htm [Accessed 14 Apr. 2019].

Met Museum (2001). Geometric Patterns in Islamic Art. [online] Metmuseum.org. Available at: https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/geom/hd_geom.htm [Accessed 14 Apr. 2019].

Met Museum (2001). Calligraphy in Islamic Art. [online] Metmuseum.org. Available at: https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/cali/hd_cali.htm [Accessed 14 Apr. 2019].

Rackham, B. (1923). Dutch tiles, the Van den Bergh gift. [online] HathiTrust. Available at: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101075437713;view=1up;seq=7 [Accessed 14 Apr. 2019].

Roskill, E., London, E., Bergh, H., Bergh, H., J.P., D., Army, S., Army, R., Talbot, D., R.N., S. and London, E. (2019). Elisabeth Henrietta Charlotte (Van den Bergh) Roskill (1904-1983) | WikiTree FREE Family Tree. [online]

Vam.ac.uk. (2019). Real or Fake? - Victoria and Albert Museum. [online] Available at: http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/r/real-or-fake/ [Accessed 14 Apr. 2019].Wikitree.com. Available at: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Van_den_Bergh-308 [Accessed 14 Apr. 2019].

Books:

Akbari, S.C. (2009) Idols in the East : European representations of Islam and the Orient, 1100-1450. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Blair, Sheila S. Islamic Calligraphy. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006.

Bloom, J. (ed.) (2002) Early Islamic art and architecture. Aldershot: Ashgate.

Cooper, Emmanuel 1972 A History of Pottery. Longham Group Limited. London.

Critchlow, K. (1976) Islamic patterns : an analytical and cosmological approach. London: Thames and Hudson.

Fukai, Shinji 1981 Ceramics of Ancient Persia. Weatherhill/Tankosha publishers. New York, Tokyo.

Grabar, O. (2005) Early Islamic art, 650-1100. Aldershot: Ashgate Variorum.

Hillenbrand, R. (1999) Islamic art and architecture. London: Thames and Hudson.

Kühnel, Ernst. The Arabesque: Meaning and Transformation of an Ornament. Graz: Verlag für Sammler, 1977.

Lane, A. (1947). Early Islamic pottery. London: Faber and Faber.

Rice, David Talbot 1965 Islamic Art. Frederick A. Praeger, Publishers. New York.

Sinopoli, Carla M.1991 Approaches to Archaeological Ceramics. Plenum Press, New York.

Vernoit, S. (ed.) (1999) Discovering Islamic art : scholars, collectors and collections 1850-1950. London: I. B. Tauris.

Watson, O. (2004) Ceramics from Islamic lands. London: Thames & Hudson, in association with the al-Sabah Collection, Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah, Kuwait National Museum.

Wilkinson, C. K.1973 Nishapur: Pottery of the Early Islamic Period. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Yoshida, Mitsukuni 1972 In Search of Persian Pottery. John Weatherhill, Inc., Baltimore

Journals:

Oweis, F. (2002). Islamic Art as an Educational Tool about the Teaching of Islam. Art Education, 55(2), p.18.

Watson, O. (2004). Fakes and forgeries in Islamic Pottery. KUNST UND KUNSTHANDWERK IM ISLAM 2. BAMBERGER SYMPOSIUM DER ISLAMISCHEN KUNST, [online] 23(2), pp.517-539. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/25817948.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Ae535fda3d0d8d61ab5facf3872e7ee4a [Accessed 14 Apr. 2019].

Item links:

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O279508/bowl-unknown/

https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/25434/lot/19/?category=list&length=10&page=2

https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/18950/lot/122/

https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/19516/lot/33/

Information from museums

Following the advice of Rachel Barclay from the Oriental Museum in Durham I explored the Metropolitan Museum's archive of essays relating to Persian Pottery to find more information about the art form as well as the V&A's collection of Persian Pottery.















Source

From a quick search of the V&A museum, it was immediately clear how much Henry Van den Bergh has contributed to their collection. This bowl pictured above is part of a series of objects that were donated by Henry Van den Bergh in his will to the V&A in 1947. c.36-39-1947. Among his Persian pottery collection he also donated 6 ceramics objects to the British Museum and 7 objects to the National Art Collection Fund. As a comparison piece, this bowl was incredibly interesting to look at. It is also made from fritware, with carved and underglaze painted decoration, Iran (Kashan), late 12th to early 13th century. This will be covered further in my comparison post with other Persian pottery from a similar time.

I have split the following research into three posts:
Calligraphy in Islamic Art
Geometry in Islamic Art
Vegetational imagery in Islamic Art

I have also just received feedback on my Research Proposal, and along with it Dr Parton has added some interesting questions add to my research. I will be attempting to answer these in the next couple of weeks and am excited to see where my research takes me.

Questions raised by this new information, and steps to take from here:

1. What was the function of the bowl or to what market was it aimed?

2. To what extent are the other 8 ceramics related to your chosen object? It is a good idea to see if you can find comparative objects - have you found any useful or similar pieces as yet?

3. As regards the calligraphy, can you find an expert or a Persian speaker who might be able to read it and translate it? This may help illuminate the function of the bowl.

Research proposal

Bowl, Pottery, Iran
Mid 13th Century CE
Gift from the Art Fund from the bequest of Henry Van der Bergh
DUROM.1983.24

The 'Object of Desire' that I have chosen is 'a deep bowl on circular foot decorated blue ground (turquoise glaze), with gold and black with foliage and interlaced scrollwork on a strapwork ground'.

The 'gilt foliage decorating the interior of this exquisite bowl combined the beauty of representational art with the elegance of geometry' is typical of much Iranian art work. Although the bowl is reconstructed from fragments, with some areas missing including two interior sections and two rim sections, it is still in fairly good condition - in fact this fragmentation allows us to delve deeper into the technical details used to construct the bowl. Its function is unknown and undocumented, however likely to be purely decorative.

The bowl itself came to the Durham Oriental Museum as part of a collection of 9 pots at the bequest of Henry Van der Bergh, and hails from the mid-13th Century CE. It has a diameter of 7 inches and is made of a medium called Fritware with Minai-Lajuardina decoration, with the style a transition between the two techniques. There is one area of dark yellow staining on the outside, and several similar smaller areas on the inside.

On first look around the museum, there were a couple of objects that piqued my interest. However, none more than this stunning turquoise bowl. The color was immediately eye catching to me, and having had a long-standing interest with Islamic and Persian art, I knew that the history behind it was likely to be personally fascinating. On deeper reflection, the fragmentation of the bowl really appealed to me, as it seemed to suggest a deeper history, and the chance to delve into this really excited me.

I organized a meeting with Rachel Barclay at the Oriental Museum as soon as I was decided on my object, to enquire some more about the bowl in question. She was kind enough to supply me with the full history on file about the bowl, as well as some surrounding documentation about how it, and the 8 other pieces of connected pottery, came to be a part of the permanent collection here in Durham. She also pointed out some useful sources of information surrounding the history and period the bowl came from to further explore the genre, techniques and themes that surrounded it's creation.

The existing information that the museum holds on my object is rather limited. We know the period in which it was produced, but not the artist, which could potentially be problematic in my research as it could give further detail and clarification about the history of the bowl. The style, paint and calligraphy decorating the bowl, however, are all details which can be researched further and likely to throw up some interesting themes to explore. After choosing my object, I have also written to the NACF to see whether they have any more details to supply me with and intend to research previous owners in further detail.

In terms of wider reading and research I have put together a bibliography to begin reading. The University Library, Jstor and Metropolitan Museum website all have many books, articles and essays available, and fascinating resources which I shall try and put to good use. In terms of further sources, the 8 other pieces of pottery which the bowl arrived with will serve as excellent points of comparison. I also intend on extending my research further with reference to the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur, The Met and the V&A from past trips and during the Christmas break. Rachel has also suggested looking at the online resources of V&A website, which has a comprehensive list of reading for me to carry out.

There are a number of interesting ways to approach the object, however I would like to explore the bowl specifically in terms of the following topics:

• Techniques 
• Ceramics 
• Colour 
• Decorative motifs 
• Calligraphy 
• pre-Islamic art and the spread of Islam 
• Repairs and damage 

At this initial juncture, the problem that I am most likely to face are limited documentation on the origins and history of this bowl, because of its date of construction. I am also likely to face difficulty as I do not speak Iranian, and this may make translation of any primary sources, and the inscription on the bowl difficult. However, I have found a variety of English sources that I can utilize. The final problem that I may face is the lack of information who the bowl was procured by and owned by, Henry Van der Bergh and Elizabeth Roskill. To begin my project, I will read secondary literature to develop my knowledge on the background and art form of the object, and then will arrange another meeting with Rachel to begin a more detailed and hands-on analysis of the object itself.

Purpose of the blog

This blog will form the research log for my 'Objects of Desire' History of Art module at Durham University, to form the basis for the audio-visual podcast that I will then create with my findings. For my project, I have selected an Iranian bowl from the Durham Oriental Museum, which I intend to research the provenance, origins and wider genre of.

This blog will be a central hub for the gathering of all the materials and information that I collate. The six main aims of the log will be to:

1. record research questions; 
2. record research interventions; 
3. record possible answers established by my research; 
4. provide a rationale for the form and content of my podcast 
5. show a reflective analysis 
6. record my bibliography/ and or sources for my research. 

The blog entries should appear in chronological order which will make it easier to follow. The main course components (Research Proposal, Research Questions, Rationale, Reflective Analysis and Bibliography can all be found under the tagged section)

Meeting with Rachel Barclay

Today I had my first appointment with Rachel Barclay, who talked me through the records of the Persian bowl, how it came to be in the Durham Oriental Museum and a brief overview in Islamic history.

The bowl was donated to the Oriental Museum by the National Arts Trust Fund, having come to them from Henry Van Den Bergh, an industrialist born in Oss in the Netherlands, who moved to London in 1870 to work in the family margarine business. The bowl was donated at the same time as 8 others, which will hopefully form the basis of some comparison for my podcast. Pottery was the main focus of Henry's collection, however he did also generously collect and donate art from a number of different mediums and cultures - for example the extensive collection of Dutch tiles which are held now in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Unfortunately for me, the records of Henry Van Den Bergh's collections seem to have been largely lost, so that it is impossible to tell where the items were bought and for how much. It was however, interesting to see the correspondence between the Art Fund and Durham Oriental Museum, which I am hoping to expand on in further blog posts, even if the writing was sometimes illegible and the process seemed far more brief than it would be nowadays!

Rachel was able to tell me that the object was dated to the 13th century, and is fritware with Minai-Lajuardina decoration. The style may be regarded as transitional from Minai ware to the later Lajuardini technique. After having conducted my own research on return from the meeting, I have found that the technique itself dates back from the 9th century AD and appears to have been developed in its earliest forms in Iraq. From there, it spread to Egypt and other parts of the Islamic world. The fritware itself consists mostly of silica with a small amount of clay and fruit (glass or glaze that is poured into water upon being removed from the kiln while it is still hot. When it hits the water, it shatters into tiny pieces. These pieces are then ground up for use in the clay body).

It was probably developed in imitation of the Chinese porcelain that was being imported into the area at the time, and many similarities can be seen in the shape and decoration of the pottery. Islamic potters didn't have the knowledge or technology to make porcelain. The technique used is very different to porcelain but does provide a bright, white background for decorating like porcelain does. It is also sometimes known by the other names of stone paste and faience.

According to Rachel, there are also some comparable pieces in the V&A as well as much literature around the history and themes that I am looking to study. Furthermore, the Metropolitan Museum has lots of information that may provide some direction to my reading.

At this stage, I will begin my research into the object itself, however, I also want to get a better contextual understanding of the object's place in the wider history of Iranian art and pottery. My brief meeting with Rachel has uncovered as many questions as it has answered, and I feel excited at the prospect of uncovering some more about this period of history and a genre of art which though aesthetically has pleased me for a long time, I actually know relatively little about.