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Lot Essay
A series of dishes decorated with ewers are in the Musée national de la Renaissance – Château d’Écouen (Frédéric Hitzel and Mireille Jacotin, Iznik. L’Aventure d’Une Collection, Paris, 2005, figs.462-67, pp.313-15). The closest comparable to ours is dated to the end of the 16th century and depicts a large central ewer with arabesque reserved against red ground – similar to the aesthetic here. Fewer dishes are published that are decorated with two-handled jars. One, much later than ours, but with the same motif was formerly in the Barlow collection (Géza Fehérvári, Islamic Pottery. A Comprehensive Study Based on the Barlow Collection, London, 1973, no.250, p.166).
This dish is exceptional for its large size. At 36.4cm. in diameter it is amongst the largest pictorial Iznik dishes known. Atasoy and Raby write that large dishes, or chargers, up to 45.5cm. in diameter are relatively common amongst the wares dating from 1480-1530. However at the time of writing, they knew of only one dish from the second half of the 16h century or from the 17th century that was larger than that offered here (Nurhan Atasoy and Julian Raby, Iznik, the Pottery of Ottoman Turkey, London, 1989, pp.43-44).
This dish is exceptional for its large size. At 36.4cm. in diameter it is amongst the largest pictorial Iznik dishes known. Atasoy and Raby write that large dishes, or chargers, up to 45.5cm. in diameter are relatively common amongst the wares dating from 1480-1530. However at the time of writing, they knew of only one dish from the second half of the 16h century or from the 17th century that was larger than that offered here (Nurhan Atasoy and Julian Raby, Iznik, the Pottery of Ottoman Turkey, London, 1989, pp.43-44).