OTTOMAN TURKEY, CIRCA 1575

This is a most unusual Iznik pottery dish. The technique coupled with the speckled quality of the glaze at first makes one look for another attribution. Closer examination of the potting and weight of the body, coupled with the drawing of the border, makes an Iznik attribution certain. A very similar dish, but with the addition of red slip, is in the Museum of Islamic Art, Qatar (Carswell, John: Iznik - Pottery for the Ottoman Empire, Doha and London, 2003, no.28, pp.98-9). The note to that dish draws attention to four vessels which were in the mosque of Selim II at Edirne and can therefore be dated to the years just before 1575. Two of these, both surahis, show different elements of the rpesent dish. One is slip-painted, while the other is decorated inthe "wheatsheaf" style (Atasoy, Nurhan and Raby, Julian: Iznik, The Pottery of Ottoman Turkey, London, 1989, pp.233-236, nos.450 and 451). Similar wheatsheaf designs can be found executed in white slip on a lavender blue ground on a mug in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Atasoy and Raby, op.cit, pl.707). Similarly sketchy drawing in slip colours can also be seen on a red ground dish in the David Collection, Copenhagen (Folsach, Kjeld v.: Art from the World of Islam in the David Collection, Copnhagen, 2001, no.281, p.194).