Lisa Golombek. China’s challenge to the Safavid potter: Imitate or innovate

Lisa Golombek
Curator Emeritus at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada, Dr Lisa Golombek is a noted on Islamic art, particularly from the Timurid period. In addition to teaching at the University of Toronto, she has written five books, including Persian Pottery in the First Global Age: The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, published in 2014. Finally, she is the author of more than 60 journal articles on a wide range of subjects, including Islamic architecture, gardens, urban history, painting, ceramics, and calligraphy and she currently has 5 articles in press.
China’s challenge to the Safavid potter: Imitate or innovate
Since the 9th century Persian potters looked to China for inspiration. With the expansion of global trade around 1600, particularly when the English and Dutch East Indies Companies took over, Iran’s ceramic industry countered the influx of the highly sought after Chinese blue-and- white porcelain. But, could the local potters compete?
Safavid pottery in the DAI will be used to illustrate how the potters met this challenge and how these pieces fit into the narrative that evolved through the multi-disciplinary research project at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto (published in 2014). This work continues the approach used previously, combining traditional art historical methodology, historical research, and scientific analysis to come up with new attributions to workshops and a new chronology.