A TALL SAFAVID POTTERY TILE MOSAIC WITH A YELLOW PEACOCK
Isfahan, Safavid Iran, 17th century

A TALL SAFAVID POTTERY TILE MOSAIC WITH A YELLOW PEACOCK
Isfahan, Safavid Iran, 17th century

Of irregular rectangular shape, made of individually cut-tile tesserae painted in reddish pink, yellow, green, black, turquoise, cobalt blue, and white, assembled in a large vertical-format figural composition featuring an elongated cusped cartouche outlined in yellow in-filled with a stylised yellow peacock against a black ground, surrounded by a polychrome floral spray with rosettes and lotus flowers, the cartouche set against a cobalt blue ground with similar polychrome trellis with large flower heads, the vertical edges with plain white borders, 84.5cm x 37cm excluding the stand.

Provenance: Private UK Collection, acquired in Iran in the late 1960s.

The present pottery mosaic panel showcases one of the traditional arts of Safavid tilework, the so-called Haft Rang (seven colours). Differently from cuerda seca tiles, in the Haft Rang technique pieces of monochrome-painted and individually fired tiles are laid on top of a previously drawn pattern and then fitted together by pouring plaster in between them. This time-consuming and delicate process was eventually succeeded by the less expensive cuerda seca technique, which allowed potters to paint several different colours at once onto square tiles keeping them separated with manganese-drenched cords.

An almost identical mosaic tile panel with a yellow peacock facing in the opposite direction of ours was successfully sold at Christie's London, 5 October 2010, lot 212. Both panels show a clear affinity to the large haft rang panel with confronting peacocks from Ardabil dating to the first quarter of the 17th century in the collection of the Louvre Museum, Paris (inv. no. MAO1189). Another notable example of animal-themed haft rang tilework can be admired over the walls and in an arched niche at the Shah Mosque in Isfahan, dating to 1627.

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Dimensions: 84.5cm x 37cm excluding the stand