A rare Timurid footed pottery flask, Persia or Central Asia, 15th or early 16th century

The form of this unusual pottery flask bears a close resemblance to a blue-and-white vessel sold in these rooms, 28 April 2004, lot 121. Although that vessel is fitted with a bull’s head spout and has a secondary flared ring on the top so that it can be positioned up-side-down, it is otherwise the only other known Timurid vessel of this peculiar form. An earlier, more globular jug with similarly positioned lug handles and a bull's head spout was published in Fehérvári and Safadi 1981, pp.160-1, no.98. 

The presence of bull's head spouts on the other two vessels has led to the suggestion that these unusual vessels served a ceremonial function, possibly for wine libations used on the occasion of Nowruz: the wine flowing from the animals mouth substituting the blood of sacrifice. The conventional spout on the present vessel complicates this theory, although a repaired break around the neck of the spout may point towards the present spout being a replacement for a now-lost zoomorphic spout.

A cryptic inscription on the top of the vessel appears to read 912 AH (1506-07), but damage and restoration to this part of the vessel complicate a definitive reading.