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拍品专文
"Sometime towards the end of the 15th-century Ottoman potters started manufacturing blue-and-white ceramics of a technical standard unmatched in the Muslim world since the early thirteenth century pottery of Kashan. The vessels, often of impressive size, had a hard, dense fritware body covered with a brilliant white slip, onto which were painted elaborate arabesques and floral scrolls in a rich cobalt which had depth and texture - the 'heap and piled' effect - of the first Yuan blue-and-white porcelains from China. Over this was a compact, colourless glaze which adhered tightly to the body and showed no flaws of crackle and tendency to pool". Thus Julian Raby introduces the highly innovative wares that began to be made at Iznik at this time (Nurhan Atasoy and Julian Raby, Iznik, the Pottery of Ottoman Turkey, London, 1989, p.77). His summary of the developments that took place at Iznik clearly acknowledges the debt to previous scholars, notably Arthur Lane who in 1957 was the first to put stricter rigour into the chronology of the development of Iznik pottery (Arthur Lane, "Ottoman Pottery of Isnik", Ars Orientalis, vol.II, 1957, pp.247-281). It was Lane who first differentiated between the different early blue and white vessels, establishing a progression in style and execution.
This bowl is born of a moment of great experimentation at Iznik. In essence it is a very impressive classic bowl of circa 1510, but it incorporates in its decorative repertoire a number of elements which can be interpreted as the roots from which later styles soon emerged.
The centre of this important bowl is painted with a pure rumi roundel, whilst the outside is decorated with very classic hatayi lotus scrolls on white ground. Both of these motifs are unchanged from the earliest Iznik vessels associated with the style of the famous ‘Baba Nakkas’, a designer from the reigns of Mehmet II (‘the Conqueror’, r.1451-81) and Beyazid II (r.1481-1512). The strong rumi roundel, its white design left reserved against a cobalt ground, relates to the centres of vessels of the period of Mehmet the Conqueror, produced in the 1480s (see for example a bowl in the Louvre, inv.OA 6321; Three Empires of Islam. Istanbul, Isfahan, Delhi, exhibition catalogue, no.67, pp.208-09). The animated hatayi flowers, the petals of which curl inwards leading them at times to be compared to boxing gloves, is also highly characteristic of this period of the first phase of Iznik production. Both are motifs are also found in other contemporaneous media such as wood, metal, leather and the arts of the book.
Decoration on the tiles of the tomb of Beyazid’s son Sehzade Mahmud, which are dated AH 912/1506-07 AD, demonstrate clearly that the aesthetic of white decoration reserved against a blue ground continued into the early sixteenth century (Hülya Bilgi, Dance of Fire. Iznik Tiles and Ceramics in the Sadberk Hanim Museum and Ömer M. Koç Collections, exhibition catalogue, Istanbul, 2009, no.5, pp.50-51). However in this period the decoration became more open with a lighter tone of blue, an increase in the relative size of minor motifs and the introduction of contrasting zones of white ground – all features found on our bowl. Chiaroscuro began to be used for the reciprocal cresting on the inside of a number of large basins, and was combined with a tendency to compartmentalise designs – a feature employed with some skill here. A bowl in the Victoria and Albert Museum dated to circa 1510 also demonstrates this clearly. Like ours it also uses the distinctive motif of small knots which on our bowl form part of the stems of the flowing branches (inv.no.C.1981-1910, Raby and Atasoy, op.cit., no.95).
However in the decoration of the cavetto, our bowl is completely novel, and stands apart from the known group. Whilst incorporating early classic motifs, it may well be the earliest appearance of floral designs with single floral sprays and cypress trees growing from a clump in the ground that can be found in any Iznik vessel. It is these floral motifs, with their freedom and eventual naturalism that completely dominated Iznik design later in the century. A fragmentary flask, formerly in the Jasim Homayzi collection and now in the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, provides the closest comparison for this (John Carswell, Iznik. Pottery for the Ottoman Empire, exhibition catalogue, Doha, 2003, no.2, pp.26-27). Dated there by Carswell to circa 1520, it shares with ours the elegant sinuous and naturalistic floral stems and the grassy shrubs from which grow tall cypresses filled with stylized waves. Carswell’s dating is in part determined through his likening of the rosettes to those that are later found on Golden Horn or tugrakes Iznik, so-named for their similarity to the decoration surrounding contemporaneous tughras (see for example Aysegül Nadir, Imperial Ottoman Fermans, exhibition catalogue, Istanbul, 1986, no.11, pp.46-47). One of the well-known examples of this ware is a flask the British Museum, previously in the Godman collection, which bears an Armenian inscription dating it to 1529. However a mosque lamp now in the British Museum employs a similar curl of naturalistic flowers in each terminal of the bold white palmettes (Türkische Kunst und Kultur aus osmanischer Zeit, exhibition catalogue, Frankfurt, 1985, no.2/7, pp.138-39). That lamp is part of a group that was produced in 1512 for the tomb of Beyazid II (and discussed at some length in the note accompanying the following lot), indicating that similar designs were used nearly twenty years earlier than the Godman flask. The decoration on our bowl is so consistent with the Abraham of Kutahya group of Iznik that it almost certainly dates to around 1510. Along with the mosque lamp, it thus represents what is possibly one the earliest dalliances with these floral motifs and also suggests an earlier date would be appropriate for the Doha flask.
The potter responsible for decorating our bowl was obviously extremely innovative. The large fan-like flowers with which he decorates the cavetto are completely unparalleled elsewhere. Are they perhaps the first attempt to depict a pomegranate or artichoke of the type that becomes popular in dishes decorated with sage green and turquoise in the 1530-40s (Maria D’Orey Capucho Queiroz Ribeiro, Iznik Pottery and Tiles in the Calouste Gulbenkian Collection, Lisbon, 2009, nos.13-14, pp.40-41)?
An interesting feature of this bowl is that in some small places, the cobalt blue has bled leaving a turquoise shadow (see for instance the bottom of the fan shaped motif at about 3 o’clock in the main image). Is this perhaps what gave the potters of the 1520s the idea of introducing turquoise into their repertoire, thus marking the tentative beginning of a painterly approach to decoration in Iznik ceramics?
This elegant bowl is a critically important piece in our understanding of the development of design at the potteries of Iznik. Incorporating features from the earliest period of Iznik production it also heralds decoration that becomes popular in subsequent decades.
This bowl is born of a moment of great experimentation at Iznik. In essence it is a very impressive classic bowl of circa 1510, but it incorporates in its decorative repertoire a number of elements which can be interpreted as the roots from which later styles soon emerged.
The centre of this important bowl is painted with a pure rumi roundel, whilst the outside is decorated with very classic hatayi lotus scrolls on white ground. Both of these motifs are unchanged from the earliest Iznik vessels associated with the style of the famous ‘Baba Nakkas’, a designer from the reigns of Mehmet II (‘the Conqueror’, r.1451-81) and Beyazid II (r.1481-1512). The strong rumi roundel, its white design left reserved against a cobalt ground, relates to the centres of vessels of the period of Mehmet the Conqueror, produced in the 1480s (see for example a bowl in the Louvre, inv.OA 6321; Three Empires of Islam. Istanbul, Isfahan, Delhi, exhibition catalogue, no.67, pp.208-09). The animated hatayi flowers, the petals of which curl inwards leading them at times to be compared to boxing gloves, is also highly characteristic of this period of the first phase of Iznik production. Both are motifs are also found in other contemporaneous media such as wood, metal, leather and the arts of the book.
Decoration on the tiles of the tomb of Beyazid’s son Sehzade Mahmud, which are dated AH 912/1506-07 AD, demonstrate clearly that the aesthetic of white decoration reserved against a blue ground continued into the early sixteenth century (Hülya Bilgi, Dance of Fire. Iznik Tiles and Ceramics in the Sadberk Hanim Museum and Ömer M. Koç Collections, exhibition catalogue, Istanbul, 2009, no.5, pp.50-51). However in this period the decoration became more open with a lighter tone of blue, an increase in the relative size of minor motifs and the introduction of contrasting zones of white ground – all features found on our bowl. Chiaroscuro began to be used for the reciprocal cresting on the inside of a number of large basins, and was combined with a tendency to compartmentalise designs – a feature employed with some skill here. A bowl in the Victoria and Albert Museum dated to circa 1510 also demonstrates this clearly. Like ours it also uses the distinctive motif of small knots which on our bowl form part of the stems of the flowing branches (inv.no.C.1981-1910, Raby and Atasoy, op.cit., no.95).
However in the decoration of the cavetto, our bowl is completely novel, and stands apart from the known group. Whilst incorporating early classic motifs, it may well be the earliest appearance of floral designs with single floral sprays and cypress trees growing from a clump in the ground that can be found in any Iznik vessel. It is these floral motifs, with their freedom and eventual naturalism that completely dominated Iznik design later in the century. A fragmentary flask, formerly in the Jasim Homayzi collection and now in the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, provides the closest comparison for this (John Carswell, Iznik. Pottery for the Ottoman Empire, exhibition catalogue, Doha, 2003, no.2, pp.26-27). Dated there by Carswell to circa 1520, it shares with ours the elegant sinuous and naturalistic floral stems and the grassy shrubs from which grow tall cypresses filled with stylized waves. Carswell’s dating is in part determined through his likening of the rosettes to those that are later found on Golden Horn or tugrakes Iznik, so-named for their similarity to the decoration surrounding contemporaneous tughras (see for example Aysegül Nadir, Imperial Ottoman Fermans, exhibition catalogue, Istanbul, 1986, no.11, pp.46-47). One of the well-known examples of this ware is a flask the British Museum, previously in the Godman collection, which bears an Armenian inscription dating it to 1529. However a mosque lamp now in the British Museum employs a similar curl of naturalistic flowers in each terminal of the bold white palmettes (Türkische Kunst und Kultur aus osmanischer Zeit, exhibition catalogue, Frankfurt, 1985, no.2/7, pp.138-39). That lamp is part of a group that was produced in 1512 for the tomb of Beyazid II (and discussed at some length in the note accompanying the following lot), indicating that similar designs were used nearly twenty years earlier than the Godman flask. The decoration on our bowl is so consistent with the Abraham of Kutahya group of Iznik that it almost certainly dates to around 1510. Along with the mosque lamp, it thus represents what is possibly one the earliest dalliances with these floral motifs and also suggests an earlier date would be appropriate for the Doha flask.
The potter responsible for decorating our bowl was obviously extremely innovative. The large fan-like flowers with which he decorates the cavetto are completely unparalleled elsewhere. Are they perhaps the first attempt to depict a pomegranate or artichoke of the type that becomes popular in dishes decorated with sage green and turquoise in the 1530-40s (Maria D’Orey Capucho Queiroz Ribeiro, Iznik Pottery and Tiles in the Calouste Gulbenkian Collection, Lisbon, 2009, nos.13-14, pp.40-41)?
An interesting feature of this bowl is that in some small places, the cobalt blue has bled leaving a turquoise shadow (see for instance the bottom of the fan shaped motif at about 3 o’clock in the main image). Is this perhaps what gave the potters of the 1520s the idea of introducing turquoise into their repertoire, thus marking the tentative beginning of a painterly approach to decoration in Iznik ceramics?
This elegant bowl is a critically important piece in our understanding of the development of design at the potteries of Iznik. Incorporating features from the earliest period of Iznik production it also heralds decoration that becomes popular in subsequent decades.