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Lot Essay
This tankard is one of a small number of vessels with figural scenes that were produced at the end of the sixteenth century. From the first half of the sixteenth century it was three-dimensional forms of larger vessels such as bottles, and tankards like the present that were more suited to these designs of one animal chasing another rather than the static circular centre of a dish.
Metal objects produced in the Balkans and Eastern Europe decorated with friezes of animals passant are generally acknowledged as the models of this group of Iznik. Indeed, Cécile Jail and Charlotte Maury in their discussion on a tankard in the Louvre very similar to that offered here, suggest that linear style of the painted ceramics can be viewed as a transposition of the angular treatment and rendering of the metal wares (Istanbul, Isfahan, Delhi. 3 Capitals of Islamic Art. Masterpieces from the Louvre Collection, exhibition catalogue, 2008, no.40/A, pp.143-44). An Ottoman silver gilt tankard, either produced in Macedonia or by craftsmen from there, which sold in these Rooms, 6 October 2009, lot 176, is one such example that demonstrates a likely precedent for the type - both in terms of form and decoration.
The artist who worked on this tankard has a very individual style. His favourite animals include a deer with long legs and a strange, slightly misunderstood, grouping of curves at the chest, a lion or dog that looks with worry over its shoulder, and a happy gambolling rabbit whose eye is set right into the top of its head. These features are precisely paralleled on a bottle sold in these Rooms as part of the Vincent Bulent Collection, 26 April 2005, lot 46 and even more strikingly on a tankard in the Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs, Paris (published in Nurhan Atasoy and Julian Raby, Iznik. The Pottery of Ottoman Turkey, London, 1989, no. 616, p.276). Another tankard so close to the latter that it may be the same, is published by Katarina Otto-Dorn as being in the Topkapi (Türkische Keramik, Ankara, 1957, pl.81). A further vessel decorated in much the same way is in the Musée National de la Renaissance (Marthe Bernus-Taylor, Arabesques et Jardins de Paradis, exhibition catalogue, Paris, 1990, no.133, p.162). There are also three dishes in the Ashmolean Museum, the David Collection and in the Gulbenkian (Atasoy and Raby, op. cit., pls.546 and 548, p.257 and Maria Queiroz Ribeiro, Iznik Pottey, Lisbon, 1996, no.87, pp.246-47). Looking at the group as a whole, one cannot help but wonder whether not just those noted above, but indeed the majority of the group were done by the same inventive artist, with the slight differences accounted for by a development in his style over time. The small number of surviving vessels is such that it is certainly possible that it is the work of a single man.
Metal objects produced in the Balkans and Eastern Europe decorated with friezes of animals passant are generally acknowledged as the models of this group of Iznik. Indeed, Cécile Jail and Charlotte Maury in their discussion on a tankard in the Louvre very similar to that offered here, suggest that linear style of the painted ceramics can be viewed as a transposition of the angular treatment and rendering of the metal wares (Istanbul, Isfahan, Delhi. 3 Capitals of Islamic Art. Masterpieces from the Louvre Collection, exhibition catalogue, 2008, no.40/A, pp.143-44). An Ottoman silver gilt tankard, either produced in Macedonia or by craftsmen from there, which sold in these Rooms, 6 October 2009, lot 176, is one such example that demonstrates a likely precedent for the type - both in terms of form and decoration.
The artist who worked on this tankard has a very individual style. His favourite animals include a deer with long legs and a strange, slightly misunderstood, grouping of curves at the chest, a lion or dog that looks with worry over its shoulder, and a happy gambolling rabbit whose eye is set right into the top of its head. These features are precisely paralleled on a bottle sold in these Rooms as part of the Vincent Bulent Collection, 26 April 2005, lot 46 and even more strikingly on a tankard in the Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs, Paris (published in Nurhan Atasoy and Julian Raby, Iznik. The Pottery of Ottoman Turkey, London, 1989, no. 616, p.276). Another tankard so close to the latter that it may be the same, is published by Katarina Otto-Dorn as being in the Topkapi (Türkische Keramik, Ankara, 1957, pl.81). A further vessel decorated in much the same way is in the Musée National de la Renaissance (Marthe Bernus-Taylor, Arabesques et Jardins de Paradis, exhibition catalogue, Paris, 1990, no.133, p.162). There are also three dishes in the Ashmolean Museum, the David Collection and in the Gulbenkian (Atasoy and Raby, op. cit., pls.546 and 548, p.257 and Maria Queiroz Ribeiro, Iznik Pottey, Lisbon, 1996, no.87, pp.246-47). Looking at the group as a whole, one cannot help but wonder whether not just those noted above, but indeed the majority of the group were done by the same inventive artist, with the slight differences accounted for by a development in his style over time. The small number of surviving vessels is such that it is certainly possible that it is the work of a single man.