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Lot Essay
As Sultan Süleyman came to the throne in 1520, Iznik ceramic production began an exciting new phase with the addition of turquoise into their previously monochrome colour palette. With this, they made bold step towards the brilliant polychromy for which Iznik later became known.
In its colouring this dish fits into the earlier stage of the transformation into polychromy. The manganese and sage green which enter the palette in the 1530s are not used here, but the black that is introduced around the same time is visible in the outlines of the decoration. Decorative elements that become more standard around 1530, including round vegetal forms, including pomegranates and artichokes with thick trunk-like stems are used freely and with assurance here. These are depicted with an emphasis on axial movement, with swaying tulips emerging from a central roundel which perhaps finds its precedent in the slightly earlier tugrake spiral style (Nurhan Atasoy and Julian Raby, Iznik, London, 1989, p.132). While the colour scheme found on this dish is that first used in the 1520s, the colouring continued to be used for another thirty years.
The largest group of comparable dishes is today in the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. One which employs a similar colour palette, and uses the same three-pronged tulip and large pomegranates is dated to circa 1550-55 (inv.no.817, published Maria Queiroz Ribeiro, Iznik Pottery, Lisbon, 1996, no.7, pp.104-05). Another which differs in that it has a cusped rim, but uses similar elements to ours also with strong axial movement is dated circa 1550-60 (inv.no.813, Ribeiro, op.cit., no.24, pp.132-33). As well as sharing with ours elements of the design, all three dishes are decorated with slightly heavy lines and a brilliant strength of the cobalt, bright turquoise and very clear white. The design on ours also relates to one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, formerly in the collection of Benjamin Altman (inv.no.14.40.732). Although later than ours, the design is again very closely comparable (Marie G. Lukens, Guide to the Collections. Islamic Art, New York, 1965, no.54, p.39).
In its colouring this dish fits into the earlier stage of the transformation into polychromy. The manganese and sage green which enter the palette in the 1530s are not used here, but the black that is introduced around the same time is visible in the outlines of the decoration. Decorative elements that become more standard around 1530, including round vegetal forms, including pomegranates and artichokes with thick trunk-like stems are used freely and with assurance here. These are depicted with an emphasis on axial movement, with swaying tulips emerging from a central roundel which perhaps finds its precedent in the slightly earlier tugrake spiral style (Nurhan Atasoy and Julian Raby, Iznik, London, 1989, p.132). While the colour scheme found on this dish is that first used in the 1520s, the colouring continued to be used for another thirty years.
The largest group of comparable dishes is today in the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. One which employs a similar colour palette, and uses the same three-pronged tulip and large pomegranates is dated to circa 1550-55 (inv.no.817, published Maria Queiroz Ribeiro, Iznik Pottery, Lisbon, 1996, no.7, pp.104-05). Another which differs in that it has a cusped rim, but uses similar elements to ours also with strong axial movement is dated circa 1550-60 (inv.no.813, Ribeiro, op.cit., no.24, pp.132-33). As well as sharing with ours elements of the design, all three dishes are decorated with slightly heavy lines and a brilliant strength of the cobalt, bright turquoise and very clear white. The design on ours also relates to one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, formerly in the collection of Benjamin Altman (inv.no.14.40.732). Although later than ours, the design is again very closely comparable (Marie G. Lukens, Guide to the Collections. Islamic Art, New York, 1965, no.54, p.39).