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Lot Essay
The tradition of carved marble water jars of this type is familiar from the Fatimid and Mamluk periods. Like ours, Mamluk examples were deeply carved but more frequently with calligraphy, in line with the Mamluk decorative mode. One such example, bearing the name of Sultan Qaitbay and datable to circa 1470-90, is in the Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo (125; Esin Atil, Renaissance of Islam. Art of the Mamluks, exhibition catalogue, Washington D.C., 1981, no.112, pp.219-20). Ottoman examples are rare.
The decoration on our water jar is distinctly Ottoman. The flowers that spring from notably thin curving stems and almost have the appearance of having been stencilled on to the surface, relate to those on contemporaneous metalwork. A covered bowl in the Sadberk Hanim Museum which is dated to the early 17th century, and a ewer offered in these Rooms, 6 October 2011, lot 299 both employ this feature (Hülya Bilgi (ed.), Reunited after Centuries. Works of art restored to Turkey by the Sadberk Hanim Museum, Istanbul, 2005, no.42, pp.104-05). On a grander scale, the taste for such thin floral sprays issuing around and from cusped medallions, can be seen on a jewelled and gold-inlaid steel helmet, dating to the mid-sixteenth century or a zinc jug in the Topkapi Palace, dated to the last quarter of the 16th century (Esin Atil, The Age of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent, exhibition catalogue, Washington D.C., 1987, no.84, p.150 and The Anatolian Civilisations III, exhibition catalogue, Istanbul, 1983, E215, p.242).
The decoration on our water jar is distinctly Ottoman. The flowers that spring from notably thin curving stems and almost have the appearance of having been stencilled on to the surface, relate to those on contemporaneous metalwork. A covered bowl in the Sadberk Hanim Museum which is dated to the early 17th century, and a ewer offered in these Rooms, 6 October 2011, lot 299 both employ this feature (Hülya Bilgi (ed.), Reunited after Centuries. Works of art restored to Turkey by the Sadberk Hanim Museum, Istanbul, 2005, no.42, pp.104-05). On a grander scale, the taste for such thin floral sprays issuing around and from cusped medallions, can be seen on a jewelled and gold-inlaid steel helmet, dating to the mid-sixteenth century or a zinc jug in the Topkapi Palace, dated to the last quarter of the 16th century (Esin Atil, The Age of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent, exhibition catalogue, Washington D.C., 1987, no.84, p.150 and The Anatolian Civilisations III, exhibition catalogue, Istanbul, 1983, E215, p.242).