The Rose and the Nightingale (gol o bolbol)

The term famille rose refers to a class of Chinese ceramics featuring a distinctive palette of overglaze enamels in which pink and red tones predominate. This palette was first developed in the early eighteenth-century China and saw an evolution in application style throughout the next century. Specifically, what started out as sparse designs in the early eighteenth century turned into dense, richly decorated patterns by the beginning of the nineteenth century. This latter style gained the moniker Mandarin Enamels and presents the category that was clearly adopted for the overall decoration of the Shirazi bowl.

Mandarin Enamels were not exported exclusively to Islamic West Asian markets in the nineteenth century, yet they make up the largest group of wares of this period in private and museum collections. The material evidence available shows that densely packed designs were popular during, and even before, the nineteenth century in Iran.

The palette of the bowl is Persian in origin rather than Chinese. While the colors used in the foliage resemble those used in Chinese Famille Rose wares, the colors of the blue flowers and clothes of the human figures are much deeper than those found on Chinese export wares, especially the blues and the violets.These colors are part of a Persian palette ubiquitous in local ceramics. In terms of rim decoration, local Iranian productions kept the dense spray of leaves, but added a denser pattern of flowers and in a broader array of colors; most evident are the blue and yellow flowers.

The inside of the Shirazi bowl contains multiple depictions of birds on tree branches sprouting from earth mounds. These look like Chinese bird-and-flower compositions, which are indeed the root of this design, but the evolution and use of this theme in Persian media has its own rich and complicated history.

In Persian literary and pictorial tradition, this theme is known as the Gol o Bolbol (rose and nightingale) and can be traced back to diplomatic connections between the Yuan and Ilkhanid dynasties in the fourteenth century, where the image of the rose appeared as a distinct motif in illustrations of Persian poetry and epic texts. An excerpt from a popular poem by the famous Persian poet Hafiz reflects the influence that this timeless theme had on patrons, artists, and poets alike:

The Nightingale with drops of his heart’s blood Had nourished the red rose, then came a wind, And catching at the boughs in envious mood, A hundred thorns about his heart entwined... -Shams al-Din Hafiz Shiraz (1315-1390)

From this poem one can surmise that the Gol (the rose or flower) alludes to the beloved, who has thorns and can be cruel, while the Bolbol (the nightingale), symbolizes the lover, who sings endlessly of his longing and devotion. The nightingale’s devotion to the rose is a metaphor for unrequited human love and the soul’s desire for spiritual union with the divine. A timeless theme that people today can still relate to, both emotionally and physically.

From the tenth century through to the Ming period, bird-and-flower themes were immensely popular in China. They could be found on all manner of media, from paintings to ceramics, all of which were used in diplomatic gifts from the Ming to eventually the Safavid and Qajar courts. Depictions of the bird-and flower theme in Persia were read as an evocation of love and devotion, while in China the theme was associated with scholarly virtuosity and certain political events, as well as with wishes of good fortune, auspicious rebuses, and seasonal events.

However, through the specific use of the rose and nightingale, the theme lost its ties to China and became something entirely Persian. Roses have always had a cultural significance in Persia—from their prevalence in garden design to the ubiquitous rose water that figured in religious and social rituals. It so happens that the nightingale, a bird known for its beautiful mating song, migrates to West Asia in the months from April to June, which coincides with the rose blooming season.

Rose-and-nightingale depictions were also influenced by botanical catalogs brought to Persia by European traders in the seventeenth century. Botanical realism was a popular style in Europe at the time, especially among Dutch painters, and often included insects, as well as the mounds of earth from where the depicted flowers sprouted. This is one possible way by which depictions of rock outcroppings and butterflies, together with tree branches and human figures, trace their origins to earlier cross-cultural contacts.