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Lot Essay
This dish is exceptional for its very large size, rare in the production of Iznik in the second half of the 16th century.
A dish measuring 42cm. in diameter was referred to in the narh defteri of 1640 as boylu, which translates as 'tall' and by implication, 'very big'. This demonstrates that even as early as the time of production, dishes of similar size to the present were considered exceptional in size (Nurhan Atasoy and Julian Raby, Iznik, the Pottery of Ottoman Turkey, London, 1989, pp.43-44). Atasoy and Raby add that large dishes, or chargers, up to 45.5cm. in diameter are relatively common amongst the wares dating from 1480-1530 but that at the time of writing, they knew of only one other from either the second half of the 16th century or from the 17th which is larger than 36.5cm. That example is published in Iznik (op. cit., no. 532, p.p.254-255). The present dish adds another to that group.
The central palmette here is closely paralleled in a dish previously in the Adda collection (Bernard Rackham, Islamic Pottery and Italian Maiolica, London, 1959, no. 127, pl. 52A).
A dish measuring 42cm. in diameter was referred to in the narh defteri of 1640 as boylu, which translates as 'tall' and by implication, 'very big'. This demonstrates that even as early as the time of production, dishes of similar size to the present were considered exceptional in size (Nurhan Atasoy and Julian Raby, Iznik, the Pottery of Ottoman Turkey, London, 1989, pp.43-44). Atasoy and Raby add that large dishes, or chargers, up to 45.5cm. in diameter are relatively common amongst the wares dating from 1480-1530 but that at the time of writing, they knew of only one other from either the second half of the 16th century or from the 17th which is larger than 36.5cm. That example is published in Iznik (op. cit., no. 532, p.p.254-255). The present dish adds another to that group.
The central palmette here is closely paralleled in a dish previously in the Adda collection (Bernard Rackham, Islamic Pottery and Italian Maiolica, London, 1959, no. 127, pl. 52A).