Dish with figure of a turban-clad youth

This turban-clad youth—with his long curls, almond-shaped eyes, plump young face, and casual pose—recalls the languorous beauties depicted in Safavid miniature paintings from the later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. As if taking a cue from miniature painting, some later Safavid ceramics, like this dish, use more colorful palettes and break away from the blue-and-white, black-under-turquoise, and monochrome wares of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and earlier.