This silver display bowl is one of three found in the Mazanderan province of northern Iran during the late 1920s or early 1930s.
It is a beautifully crafted object, decorated with fourteen radiating lotus stamens, with the petals chased on the underside. The use of this pattern shows influence from ancient Egypt, but the shape and design are distinctive of metal bowls made by artists of the Achaemenid Persian empire, which flourished between the 6th and 4th centuries BC.
Provenance
Thomas Lavington Jacks, Tehran, 1930s; Joseph Brummer, New York; Fahim Kouchakji, New York; Sotheby Parke Bernet Inc, New York, 1977; Private collection.