Curator Conversation: Beauty for Display with Bita Pourvash
Our #MuseumWithoutWalls Object of the Week — a dish from 17th-century Iran — is a beautiful ceramic that would have been displayed on a wall. As the Museum’s Bita Pourvash explains, the plate represents an idealized female figure, dressed in the traditional attire of the period. Persian poetry features ideals of beauty that are tied to or inspired by nature. This is reflected in woman represented on the dish, with her eyebrows similar to the crescent moon, eyes likened to almonds, and stature elegant as a cypress tree.