Molded Vessel: Seated Man Holding a Water Skin in the Princeton University Art Museum, April 2017

Molded vessel: seated man holding a water skin, Second half of the 13th century

Frit body painted in black under a turquoise glaze

25.2 x 13.2 x 11.8 cm (9 15/16 x 5 3/16 x 4 5/8 in.)

Museum purchase, Trumbull-Prime Fund

y1931-3


Handbook Entry
In addition to bowls, ewers, and other utilitarian shapes, the potters of Islamic Persia created a variety of mold-made ceramics in animal and human form, such as this charming vessel in the form of a seated man holding a double-spouted water skin. The ornament of his dress, referred to as "wind-blown willow spray," is painted in black beneath a turquoise luster glaze. The style and technique are those associated with Kashan, a major center of pottery and tile production, but the vase may have been produced elsewhere. The man, who may be a water seller, wears a tall hat and is wrapped in a long garment. His lugubrious expression and tiny moustache give him a comic air, but his arched eyebrows, moon face, and slanted eyes reflect the standards of beauty in thirteenth-century Iran.


Text from: artmuseum.princeton.edu/collections/objects/19912