Apothecary’s vase

At first sight, this baluster vase whose belly is covered with a large inscription could be attributed to the workshops of “Sultanabad” in north-western Iran, the references to Ilkhanid ceramics being so numerous. The principal elements of the decoration accentuate/show a slight relief as a result of the use of a thick slip – a process that characterised, in the early fourteenth century, the wares known as “Sultanabad”, or those of Joveyn, in Iranian Khorasan. The pattern of small dentate leaves strewn over the neck, like the arches of the base, or the plant background in grey slip are also borrowings from Ilkhanid Persia and, beyond that, Yuan and Ming China. It is worth noting that the tonalities of grey and speckled decoration are noticeable during the same period in Ilkhanid garments, as shown by those represented in the miniatures of the Jami-i-Tawarikh (1314), or the “small Shanameh”.

However, the Arabic inscription in thuluth calligraphy and the two rumī leaf friezes are unfamiliar to Persia. They enable the work to be attributed to the Mamluk workshops of Egypt or Syria. The analysis of the item in the laboratory confirms the stylistic approach.

The inscription is rather curious. “The soothsayer is short-lived, it is the musk; a lack of haste is the law for him. You will tilt a pot containing a strong and heavy rain. If fate decides, it is cloudy; if fate decides, it is clear. I confided my entire fate to the beloved. If he wishes, he will let me live, if he wishes, he will bring about the ruin of a friend. . . . And, truly, you will ward off [evil].”

The properties of the substances contained in the container were often indicated by inscriptions on the belly or neck. They were extremely metaphorical when it was a question of curing sexual impotence, attracting luck or arousing passion. The wording used here belongs to the last categories: musk was known to be an aphrodisiac.

These pots with magical inscriptions were very much in favour with the Ilkhanids, as with the Mamluks during the fourteenth century. The Hurūfi sect, versed in “the science of letters”, was being formed during this period. However, it should be recalled that the magical use of writing was an ancient phenomenon in the East. Terracotta jugs excavated in Susa, Iran, and dating from the early centuries of Islam had surfaces covered in occult formulas in Arabic writing[1]. These pots had been deliberately broken, as though someone wanted to break a spell. We also know the importance of medieval talismanic goblets whose hemispheres represented the cosmology of the heavens.

Furthermore, these glazed ceramic containers were a good way of preserving medicinal products. In Islamic lands, hospitals and pharmacies were supplied with several of them. Exported to the Christian West, they were copied by the potters of Malaga, Valencia and Manises, then later those of Florence, and performed the same functions. As for vases from the East, they were sometimes forgotten at the back of European dispensaries – which is why they survived.