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Lot Essay
Large ewers and basins of this type were typically used for ritual ablutions. A very similar ewer to ours, silver rather than tombak and without its original basin, was published by E. Grünberg and E.M. Torn (Four Centuries of Ottoman Taste, exhibition catalogue, London, 1988, no.27). Like ours, the surface of that ewer was covered in a repoussé diamond lattice and had a foliate knop to the top and a pinecone finial at the end of the spout. That ewer bore the tughra of Selim III, dating it to the period between 1789 and 1808. Another related ewer and basin, slightly smaller than ours but also in tombak, is in the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts, Istanbul (The Anatolian Civilisations III, exhibition catalogue, Istanbul, 1983, no.E.344, pp.304-05). Both the ewer and the basin of the Istanbul pair have inscriptions stating that they were endowed to the mausoleum of Perevniyal Valide Sultan in AH 1286/1869-70 AD. On that basis they were attributed to circa 1870.
The tughra on the silver example however provides compelling evidence that this distinctive group is late 18th or early 19th century and it is possible of course that the Istanbul pair were endowed some time after their manufacture. A closely comparable ewer and basin, again slightly smaller than ours, recently sold in Paris, Drouot-Richelieu, 26 June 2015, lot 204 (illustrated on the front cover).
The tughra on the silver example however provides compelling evidence that this distinctive group is late 18th or early 19th century and it is possible of course that the Istanbul pair were endowed some time after their manufacture. A closely comparable ewer and basin, again slightly smaller than ours, recently sold in Paris, Drouot-Richelieu, 26 June 2015, lot 204 (illustrated on the front cover).