Animal-Spouted Pitcher

Animal-Headed Ewer

Nishapur, located in East Iran, was one of the most flourishing Iranian cities before the Mongol devastation in the early thirteenth century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art conducted excavations in this city in the 1930s and 1940s; a variety of artifacts, including architectural decoration, pottery, glass, metalwork, and jewelry, was unearthed. One of the most typical and characteristc potteries found there is this type of buff ware with underglaze painting in black, yellow, green, and sometimes brick-red. The subjects depicted on this type of ware are either purely abstract motifs or decorative representation of human, and animal figures, and particularly birds. The shape of the ewer shown here is not especially rare; a number of animal-headed ewers in monochrome glaze ware and unglazed ware are known. However, the combination of the shape and the technique makes this ewer an unusual piece. The artist succeeded not only to model a humorous shape of an animal head, but also to depict a lively procession of birds. Each bird's head is encircled by a trilobed halo to which wings have been attached. This is a very unusual iconography seen only on this ware.

Tomoko Masuya in [Walker et al. 1994]

1937, excavated at Sabz Pushan in Nishapur, Iran by the Metropolitan Museum of Art's expedition; 1938, acquired by the Museum in the division of finds

Mexico City. Colegio de San Ildefonso. "Arte Islámico del Museo Metropolitano de Arte de Nueva York," September 30, 1994–January 8, 1995, no. 39.

Paris. Musée du Louvre. "Louvre Long Term Loan," April 28, 2004–April 27, 2006, no catalogue.

New York. The Hagop Kevorkian Special Exhibitions Gallery, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Making the Invisible Visible," April 2–August 4, 2013, no catalogue.

Wilkinson, Charles K., Walter Hauser, and Joseph M. Upton. "The Iranian Expedition 1937: The Museum's Excavations at Nishapur." Metropolitan of Art Bulletin vol. 33, section 2 (1938). p. 13, ill. fig. 14 (b/w).

Dimand, Maurice S. A Handbook of Muhammadan Art. 2nd rev. and enl. ed. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1944. p. 165.

Wilkinson, Charles K. Nishapur: Pottery of the Early Islamic Period. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1973. no. 72a,b, pp. 24–5, 49, ill. p. 49 (b/w).

Metropolitan Museum of Art, Daniel S. Walker, Arturo Ponce Guadián, Sussan Babaie, Stefano Carboni, Aimee Froom, Marie Lukens Swietochowski, Tomoko Masuya, Annie Christine Daskalakis-Matthews, Abdallah Kahil, and Rochelle Kessler. "Colegio de San Ildefonso, Septiembre de 1994–Enero de 1995." In Arte Islámico del Museo Metropolitano de Arte de Nueva York. Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1994. no. 39, pp. 122–23, ill. (color).

Blair, Sheila S. Text and Image in Medieval Persian Art. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014. p. 19, ill. fig. 2.7 (color).