Page 45 - ART OF THE ISLAMIC AND INDIAN WORLDS Carpets, Ceramics Objects, Christie's London Oct..27, 2022

A LUSTROUS MENAGERIE: PERSIAN CERAMICS

FROM A PRIVATE AMERICAN COLLECTION

Ayoub Rabenou (pictured here second from the right), with Dr. M.T. Mostafavi, Director of the Iran-e Bastan Museum
in Tehran and Director General of the Iranian Antiquities Service (fifth from left), Dr. Mehdi Bahrami (sixth from left),
Charles K. Wilkinson, Head of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Middle East Department (seventh from left) and
Arthur Upham Pope (eighth from left) at the celebration of Bahrami’s work on Gurgan, circa 1949

The 1931 Exhibition of Persian Art held at the Royal Academy in London “gratifying results”. Rabenou’s finds were exhibited as early as 1931 at the
was organised by Arthur Upham Pope, an American whose name became International Exhibition of Persian Art in London. The same year he sold over
synonymous with Persian Art. That magnificent exhibition led to Pope’s six- 100 pieces including many ceramics from sites such as Saveh, Sultanabad and
volume magnum opus, the Survey of Persian Art, which came out shortly before Rayy in Sotheby’s June 1931 sale of Important Works of Persian Art.
the outbreak of war. While this was produced in the United Kingdom, he clearly
also had the American market in mind, and was also working on a magnificent The combination of active promotion by Pope, and the supply of excellent *31
New York follow-up to the London show. This took place in 1940 - it was quality works of art in a new and exciting area meant that interest in collecting A KASHAN LUSTRE, TURQUOISE AND COBALT-BLUE STAR TILE
promoted as “Six Thousand Years of Persian Art” ending up unfortunately Persian Art rapidly grew. Every museum needed its representative collection IRAN, LATE 13TH/EARLY 14TH CENTURY
overshadowed by the European war. and so extraordinary pieces began to appear throughout the country, not
Depicting a camel with saddle cover walking amongst foliage, intact
just in New York, Boston and Washington, but also in Chicago, Cincinnati, 8in. (20.3cm.) across
This move to New York was one that a number of dealers also made in the Cleveland, St. Louis, Worcester, and many other places. Several of those works
1930s, choosing to move as Europe became more troubled, and as America that had been displayed in London some even published in the Illustrated £60,000-80,000 US$69,000-91,000
was considered the marketplace with the greatest potential. The Armenians London News, made their way to the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art (32-25), €69,000-91,000
Dikran Khan Kelekian and Hagop Kevorkian, each with huge and impressive the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (44.829) and the Minneapolis Institute of Art This magnificent star tile is amongst the best of a small group of Ilkhanid The intensity of colour and the control of the turquoise on our tile feels
stock already, both set up there and eventually relocated from Paris. A number (50.46.434). In the 1950s and 60s he continued to promote Iranian Art, placing examples painted with animals. They would have provided glittering very close to a group of star and cross tiles in the British Museum, which
of other dealers followed, making New York the centre of the commercial numerous works of Art including ceramics from Gurgan and Nishapur in the ornament to the interiors of secular and religious buildings in Iran, from are thought to have once decorated the interior of a Shi’ite shrine, the
Islamic Art world. Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Victoria & Albert Museum. around 1200. Three Kashan star tiles in the David Collection, dated around Imamazada Ja’far, in Damghan, dated 1267 (OAG 1983.230, 231, 232 a & b;
1290-91 are decorated in a similar fashion although with less refined op.cit., 2002, fig. 2, pp.4 and 266 and The Arts of Islam, exhibition catalogue,
The Iranian Jewish entrepreneur Ayoub Rabenou was amongst those who The brilliance of the combination of Pope and the dealers was however that drawing – each with an animal (a bull, two elephants or a horse) captured 1976, London, no.384, p.258). Although the cross tiles from that commission
chose New York as the western base from which to sell the items that were Persian Art was also promoted as an excellent addition to a well-rounded running to the left, on a foliate ground emitting from a small pond (The have no inscription, the star tiles have borders which contain sections from
being discovered through his legally licensed Persian excavations. Ayoub private collection of western art, and so groups of items from Rabenou, Legacy of Genghis Khan, exhibition catalogue, New York, 2002, pp.100-101, the Shahnama, albeit verses that are religious in tone. In the entry for the tiles
Rabenou began excavating as a young man in the 1920s. His collaborations particularly pottery of which there was a considerable supply, were acquired figs.113-5). A similar horse tile, which is in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in the Legacy of Genghis Khan catalogue, the author states that given the
with the Iranian Archaeologic Department and the directors of the Iran by many private collectors. In 1939 Rabenou was instrumental in forming is dated AH 710/1310 AD (Oliver Watson, Persian Lustre Ware, London, nature of the inscription, the tiles may originally have been made to adorn a
(Bastan) National Museum are well documented in the numerous exhibitions the Persian Art collection of Doris Duke, which included a large number of 1985, p.141, no.119). Another in the same museum, attributed to Kahan, circa royal residence, but were instead used or reused in the shrine at Damghan.
and catologues in which both participated, many of which were sponsored lustre star tiles as well as innumerable other Islamic works, all now located in 1310, depicts a fierce camel with a dotted coat and covered with a saddle So close is ours in feeling, that is it possible that it was part of the same
by the government. He worked very closely with Mehdi Bahrami (Director of Shangri La, Hawaii. Many of these private collections formed the core of major blanket decorated with dense whirls. It bears close resemblance to ours original commission?
Islamic Art, Iran Bastan (National) Museum), M.T. Mostafavi (Director General institutional donations, such as Alfred Pilsbury’s bequest to the Minneapolis both in the style of the drawing and the finesse (06.1896; op.cit, 2002,
Antiquities, Iran), Andre Godard (Director of the Iranian Archaeological Institute of Art. The current group is typical of this process, its provenance fig.117). Another of the same group, very similar, but decorated with a Star tiles without a calligraphic border are rare, and the result is such that
Service), and the archaeologist Roman Ghirshman. In 1935 Erich Schmidt in going back to the 1930s and 40s, the real heyday of Persian Art in the USA. jackal, recently sold at Artcurial, Antiquities, Islamic & Pre-Columbian Art, the central image becomes larger and far stronger. A tile almost identical to
the Penn University Museum Bulletin Rayy Research report describes Ayoub’s The quality of the best pieces here is exceptional. Paris, 2 November 2021, lot 143. ours but decorated with a horse sold in these Rooms, 13 April 2010, lot 51.
advice guiding him where to excavate in the garden of Abul Fath Zadeh with This must have been part of the same original commission as ours.

42 In addition to the hammer price, a Buyer’s Premium (plus VAT) is payable. Other taxes and/or an Artist Resale Royalty 43
fee are also payable if the lot has a tax or λ symbol. Check Section D of the Conditions of Sale at the back of this catalogue.