Note: This ewer is part of a group of polychrome ceramics which were produced in Kirman, Iran. The fortunes of this city in south-eastern Iran rose under Shah ‘Abbas I (r.1587–1629) when a number of major monuments were commissioned. During the seventeenth century, a new style of Kirman ceramics arose based on Chinese motifs. The ewer’s size and shape, however, are distinctly Iranian. The decoration of this ewer incorporates spiky foliage and orange-red flowers with green foliage typical of Kirman. A large group of similarly decorated Kirman wares are on display in the ceramics galleries of the Victoria and Albert Museum. 

The different forms of ewers and the roles that they played were manifold; they were used to pour water for bathing, for hand-washing, or for ritual washing (wudu'). Many Safavid illustrations of the period depict such objects in use. Over the course of the seventeenth century, as banquets and official receptions grew increasingly formal and extravagant, multiple ewers of this sort would have been necessary. An extremely similar Kirman bottle decorated in the same patterns and design is displayed in the Ashmolean museum’s Islamic Middle East gallery (acc. No. EA1978.1709)..