TURKEY, CIRCA 1800

Details

AN OTTOMAN GILT-COPPER (TOMBAK) EWER
TURKEY, CIRCA 1800
With strongly fluted rounded lower body and upper inverted conical sides rising to the neck with boss and flaring mouth, curving spout, cast elaborately scrolling handle, stepped domed hinged cover with bud knop, on short spreading foot, the sides engraved with floral swags hanging from a foliate band, gilding mostly gone but remaining in less rubbed areas, cover very slightly dented
13 7/8in. (35.2cm.) high

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Lot Essay

This form of ewer with a strongly fluted lower body was probably imported from Europe. An example in the Khalili Collection is very European indeed in appearance (J. M. Rogers, Empire of the Sultans, Ottoman Art from the Collection of Nasser D. Khalili, Geneva, 1995, no.121, p.180). A closely related but less immediately European version is in the Topkapi Palace (The Anatolian Civilisations, exhibition catalogue, Istanbul, 1982, II, no.E,287, p.275. That jug also bears a dedicatory inscription in the name of Shahzada Mehmed, the son of Sultan Abdulhamid I dated AH 1195/1780-81 AD. The present ewer, while retaining the European fluting on the underside, has used a far more traditional Ottoman overall shape with typical engraved floral swags.

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