OTTOMAN TURKEY, CIRCA 1580-85

The use of the elegant fish-scale pattern which covers the ground of this dish is first found decorating a jug in the form of a fish in The Benaki Museum (10), Athens, which dates to the 1520's (Nurhan Atasoy and Julian Raby, Iznik, the Pottery of Ottoman Turkey, London, 1989, no.451, pl.124, p.106). In the late 1570s and 80s it became popular to enliven the background of vessels with fish-scale motif, as seen here. The practice of separating panels of fish-scale with saz leaves, arabesque or rumi design, as on our dish, also became popular particularly in the reign of Sultan Murad III. Very similar design can be seen on a water bottle in the British Museum dated to 1580-85 (G.1983.116, Atasoy and Raby, op.cit., no.743) or on a similarly shallow dish in the Louvre (OA 7880⁄28; Three Empires of Islam, exhibition catalogue, Bancaja, 2008, no.89B, p.260). A tankard with similar design recently sold in these Rooms, 30 October 2025, lot 46.