Iznik Polychrome Pottery Dish Decorated with Blue Saz Leaves and Hyacinths, Carnations and Roses

Project Details

Iznik Polychrome Pottery Dish Decorated with Blue Saz Leaves and Hyacinths, Carnations and Roses

Ottoman Empire

Second Half of the 16^th Century

Diameter: 30.3 cm.

Fritware, the white ground painted under a clear glaze in green, cobalt-blue, bole-red, black, the interior is decorated with a symmetrical arrangement of red and blue saz leaves, carnations and rosettes stemming out from a central tuft, rim framed by a band of stylized wave scrolls.

In the Ottoman period, flowers decorating the present dish, were a constant part of daily life, grown in gardens everywhere, from palaces to humble homes. Flowers were blessed reminders of the gardens of heaven. Foreign travellers and ambassadors who visited the empire, frequently remarked about this love of flowers. Rose had an especially important place in poetry and all art fields as the symbol of prophet Muhammad. In illustrated Ottoman prayer books, roses with their leaves inscribed with names/titles of the prophet are called gül-i Muhammedî (rose of Muhammad).

The saz leaf is also an important motif frequently used by the artists employed in the Ottoman court studio. The first representative of the saz style at the Ottoman palace was Şahkulu, an artist brought from Tabriz by Sultan Selim I (r. 1512-1520). This style was a departure from the classical miniature painting, characterised by pictures drawn with a brush in black ink, featuring long pointed leaves, giving birth to the term ‘saz leaf’. Paintings in the saz style may remind a thick forest with intertwined curved leaves and khatai blossoms. In fact, the word saz, used to mean ‘forest’ in the Dede Korkut stories that date back to the 10^th or 11^th century.

Two closely related Iznik dishes, similarly decorated with feathery blue and red saz leaves and flowers, is in the Musee National de la Renaissance – Chateau d’Écouen (inv. no. E. CI. 8120). Please see, Hitzel, Frédéric et al. Iznik – L’Aventure d’une Collection, Musee National de la Renaissance – Chateau d’Écouen, Paris, 2005, no. 57, p. 91 and no. 219, p. 178.

Other comparable Iznik dishes decorated with symmetrically organised saz leaves flanked by flowers, can be found in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (inv. no. 78.53), Richmond, the Archaeological Museum of Iznik and the British Museum (inv. no. 92.6-13.69), London. Please see Nurhan Atasoy & Julian Raby. Iznik: The Pottery of Ottoman Turkey, Thames & Hudson, London, 1989, Nos. 387, 389, 390, p. 226.

The present dish is a fine and important example of Iznik ceramic production, displaying an iconic aesthetic and presence with its vibrant colours and brilliant finish.

Provenance

-Stefanos Lagonico Collection, thence by descent until Jean Lagonico No. 29.

Stefanos Lagonico (1890-1943) was a prominent member of the Alexandrian Greek community. Members of this distinguished group were among the earliest modern connoisseurs of Islamic art. Their loans made up majority of the ground-breaking Exposition d’art Musulman in Munich in 1910. In 1937 Lagonico left Egypt and settled in France with his collection of 47 remarkable Iznik ceramics where they were handed down to his son Jean and eventually sold.

-Sold at Sotheby’s Monaco, 7 December 1991, Lot 37.

-Christie’s London, 17 October 1995, Lot 315.

-Private Collection, Austria.

Categories: Ceramics

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Iznik Polychrome Pottery Dish Decorated with Blue Saz Leaves and Hyacinths, Carnations and Roses

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