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Lot Essay
Iznik vessels of the sixteenth century depicting the human figure are very rare indeed. Only one other dish, in a private collection and formerly in the J. Acheroff Collection, can clearly be dated to the sixteenth century and yet uses as its main design two human figures (Lane, A.: Later Islamic Pottery, London, 1957, pl.43A, dated "about 1560-80"). Atasoy and Raby (Atasoy,N and Raby,J.: Iznik, the Pottery of Ottoman Turkey, London, 1989, pl.609) date it to 1590-1600, but still within the 16th century.
Unlike the static nature of the Acheroff dish, the artist who painted the present example fills it with a vitality which is very unusual in Iznik pottery. The form of the human figure is completely ignored in the attempt to convey movement. The head of the horse is very fluently drawn, and the bird hovering over the horse's head is masterly. There is no apparent iconographic source for the design; it comes straight from the imagination.
One small clue which links this dish with two other Iznik vessels which are themselves most unusual is the irregular blue line at the bottom of the dish. The pattern of this line is very close to that on two very similar dishes, each of which depicts a bird in the centre of scrolling panels outlined by similar lines. The bird in the centre is again very fluently drawn, but a quick inspection again shows a complete lack of any attempt to recreate normal proportions. One of these dishes is in the inili Kk, Istanbul (Atasoy and Raby, op.cit, pl.761); the other, whose present location is unknown, is known from a drawing in the aquisition records of General Pitt-Rivers, formerly at the Pit-Rivers Museum, Farnham, having been purchased at Philipps in 12 June 1883.
Unlike the static nature of the Acheroff dish, the artist who painted the present example fills it with a vitality which is very unusual in Iznik pottery. The form of the human figure is completely ignored in the attempt to convey movement. The head of the horse is very fluently drawn, and the bird hovering over the horse's head is masterly. There is no apparent iconographic source for the design; it comes straight from the imagination.
One small clue which links this dish with two other Iznik vessels which are themselves most unusual is the irregular blue line at the bottom of the dish. The pattern of this line is very close to that on two very similar dishes, each of which depicts a bird in the centre of scrolling panels outlined by similar lines. The bird in the centre is again very fluently drawn, but a quick inspection again shows a complete lack of any attempt to recreate normal proportions. One of these dishes is in the inili Kk, Istanbul (Atasoy and Raby, op.cit, pl.761); the other, whose present location is unknown, is known from a drawing in the aquisition records of General Pitt-Rivers, formerly at the Pit-Rivers Museum, Farnham, having been purchased at Philipps in 12 June 1883.