Vase with peacocks

The Lebanese coastal city of Tyr was conquered by the Frankish in 1124 and destroyed one and a half centuries later by the Mamluk, who left it in ruins. Celebrated by Moroccan geographer Al-Idrisi (a. 1110- a. 1165) for its ceramics industry, it is nevertheless impossible to tell if the peacock vase discovered there, typical by its shape, technique and decoration of twelfth century Syria, really was produced in the Tyr workshops.

Narrow base, rounded body, but wide shoulder topped by a cylindrical neck, the peacock vase is what is called baluster-shaped, traditional in the Near East, already present in Ancient Egypt, then under the Sassanide. Very common in Syria in the twelfth century[1], it continued in Mamluk Egypt[2] and made its way to Spain, then Italy in the first three quarters of the fifteenth century, where it is sometimes endowed with two small handles (pharmaceutical jar, Bargello Museum). These objects, despite their variations, are always for pharmaceutical use.

The decoration extends over the body, in a larger register, bordered by double lines. The peacock silhouettes are painted under a transparent turquoise glaze. Fine incisions highlight the details of the plumage.

Peacocks were very frequent on the Syrian ceramics of this era. In metallic lustre (bowl at the Cairo Islamic Art Museum, shard at the Louvre Museum), or painted under glaze (vase with peacocks, National Museum of Damascus), they usually have very clean, stylised, almost calligraphic lines. These positive connotations ensure it an important place in all the techniques – ceramics, metal, fabric, architectural ornamentation – and throughout the Mediterranean world, from Constantinople to Spain. In Byzantine, there is this link with the idea of power, for example in the palaces of Palermo, but the peacock is most often a symbol of eternity, next to the cross. These religious references are echoed in Islam, in Sufism. In the XIIth century, the Syrian sect of the Yazidi adopted the peacock as their symbol, while the Iranian Farid Al-Din ‘Attar (a.1142-1220), in Conversation of the Birds [Manteq at-Tayr], makes it the "bird of paradise". As in Christianism, the peacock is often associated with the figure of Adam. However, this iconography goes back to pre-Islamic times. Since Sassanide Iran, the peacock is linked to the princely iconography. It is thus found on the standard bearer plate[3], next to what seems to be a representative of power, or, in the twelfth century, associated with representations of a having place of honour prince.

[2] Apothicary vase, Egypt, beginning of the fourteenth century, Paris, Louvre Museum, MAO 618.

[3] Plate with standard bearer, Iraq, nineteenth century, Louvre Museum, MAO 23.