People and Objects through Time

The pattern of diagonals and crosses on the rim of the lid more closely resembles borders from Timurid pottery than any Chinese models from the seventeenth century. Timurid potters simplified and abstracted the patterns on Chinese porcelain; these forms were appropriated and then sublimated within Persian art. It is impossible to say whether the border on the pen case was a reference to Chinese ceramics, to historical Persian ceramics, or a combination of these and other sources that together would have comprised the contemporary cultural milieu. Even one object like this incorporates the traces of many exchanges of objects and art styles over geographical regions and swathes of time.

The smudge on the edge of the lid, suggestive of a fingerprint, is one trace of the people who handled this object throughout its lifetime: a craftsman who touched the glaze before it was fully dry. We should consider this pen case in light of the people who interacted with it: the Chinese craftsmen who first created it, the merchants who transported it all the way to Persia, the person who collected it and passed it down through their family, anyone who took it out to use it for writing, and those who restored it. The pen case’s journey didn’t end with its restoration, either. It traveled through another 400 years of history to reach us today.