- Title
- Rosewater Sprinkler in the form of a Heron
- Date Made
- circa 1750-1900
- Medium
- Parcel-gilt silver with inset foil-backed green glass eye
- Dimensions
- a) Plug height: 1 1/4 in. (3.18 cm)
a) Plug diameter: 1/2 in. (1.27 cm)
b) Base: 10 3/4 x 4 x 3 in. (27.31 x 7.62 x 10.16 cm)
a-b) Overall: 10 3/4 x 4 x 3 in. (27.31 x 10.16 x 7.62 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.2013.220.6a-b
- Collecting Area
- South and Southeast Asian Art
- Curatorial Notes
Rosewater sprinklers, known as gulab pash, were initially used at the Mughal court in the 16th-17th centuries to celebrate the Iranian festival of Ab Pashi, which commemorated an historical rainfall that ended a drought and famine. By the 18th-19th centuries, the use of sprinklers for dispensing rosewater and other scents on honored guests at auspicious occasions had been adopted throughout South Asia and by European residents, with sprinklers being produced in various locales and in a wide range of decorative styles and media.
A popular type of rosewater sprinkler was fashioned in the form of a heron, or a stork or cormorant (differentiated in part by the size and shape of the bird’s bill). Indian exhibition catalogues from the late 19th-early 20th centuries document the production of stork-shaped rosewater sprinklers in Patan, Jhallawar State (modern Jhalawar), Rajasthan, and in Dhar and Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh. The LACMA example portrays a heron, perhaps modeled on a Grey Heron (Ardea cinerea), with his neck craned upward and grasping in its bill a lotus with a perforated flowerhead. The heron’s wings and body feathers are delineated by chased scallop-shell patterns and gilding. It stands with both feet on a circular stepped base. On its upper back is a duct with an onion-dome cap for filling the rosewater reservoir.
Closely related stork-shaped rosewater sprinklers are in the Victoria and Albert Museum (IS.4-1887) and (or formerly) in a private collection in Brussels.