OTTOMAN TURKEY, CIRCA 1585

This dish was formerly in the Lagonico Collection - originally assembled by Stefanos Lagonico in Alexandria, Egypt, in the 1920s. The Lagonico family was one of many Greek settlers who took a primary role in the rapid growth of the Egyptian cotton industry. As these Greek families grew in wealth, many began collecting art with a small number focusing on Islamic art, which was seen as an extension of Hellenism. The private collections of the Greek community in Alexandria would go on to form the core of the important 1925 exhibition Exposition d’art Musulman, only the second great exhibition of Islamic art, which was organised at their invitation by the French art historian and scholar, Gaston Migeon, and which included pieces from the Lagonico collection.

Atasoy and Raby write that with an absence of court involvement in the design of pottery vessels during the reign of Murad III (r.1574-95), the potters of Iznik often juxtaposed disparate motifs in surprising but effective combinations, resulting in wares that felt different to the familiar floral types. There was a liberal use of the bole-red, and compositions which often consisted of sequences of border motifs (Nurhan Atasoy and Julian Raby, Iznik. The Pottery of Ottoman Turkey, London, 1989, p.261). A dish with a similar central roundel, with arabesque reserved against a bole-red ground is in the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Museum, Lisbon, attributed to 1580 (Atasoy and Raby, op cit., figs. 567 and 740, p.261). Another rimless dish, with similar roundel and a related band of palmettes around the cavetto is in the British Museum (G.1983.136), attributed to 1585.