Recognition of the Period and Place of Production of the Cockerel-Headed Ewer Lustre Pottery Attributed to Kashan in the Niavaran Palace Museum Based on Oliver Watson’s Stylistic Theory of the Luster Pottery

Lustre potteries, as one of the pottery works in Iran, have been produced during the sixth and the seventh centuries AH in various centers in the cities of Kashan, Ray, Saveh, Sultanabad, and Takht-e-Suleyman. These works have different forms. It is difficult to understand such works due to the lack of accurate dating and the ambiguity of the place of production. This paper aims to study and explain the chronology of the cockerel-headed ewer lustre pottery presented in the Niavaran Palace Museum based on the comparative approach and library studies. The methodology of this research is descriptive-historical, and information gathering has been done in the form of library and field studies. It pursues objectives such as more accurate dating, an identification of the place of production, and an understanding of the production style for this ewer. Therefore, this container is first documented, and, then, the components are described and the motifs are identified. Subsequently, the dating and place of production of this ewer are investigated through a comparative study of historical works, referring to the library resources and deploying the Oliver Watson stylistic framework. Hence, the three main questions of this research are: To which period does the lustre pottery (sorahi) of the Niavaran Palace Museum belong? Where is its manufacturing center? Also, which of the known styles of lustre pottery has been used in its making? The results of this study indicate that the place of production of this ewer was Kashan, and it was produced based on the coarse style in the late sixth century and the early seventh century AH.