OTTOMAN TURKEY, CIRCA 1560

The colours of this impressive dish are typical of the production of Iznik in the 1550s and early 1560s. The earliest known dateable piece to use bole red is the famous lamp from the Süleymaniye (completed in 1557), now in the Victoria & Albert Museum (inv.no.131.1885; Atasoy and Raby, 1989, fig.377, pp.224-25). There, like our dish, the red is thinly and slightly unevenly applied such that in places the white ground shows through in patches or the red appears orangey in colour. This is indicative of an important period when the potters were still mastering the technical and aesthetic demands of bole red. A dish with a similar colour scheme sold in these Rooms, 26 April 2012, lot 240.