OTTOMAN TURKEY, CIRCA 1585-90

This fine dish with its striking blue ground is very similar to an example in the David collection attributed to circa 1585-90 (inv.no.Isl.178; published in black and white in Nurhan Atasoy and Julian Raby, Iznik. The Pottery of Ottoman Turkey, London, 1989, no.489, p.248) and another in the Victoria & Albert Museum, attributed to 1590 (inv.no.C.2016-1910; Atasoy and Raby, op.cit., no.499, p.248). All three have palmettes of similar form at their centre. On the V&A dish, which is much smaller than ours, the palmette is filled with blue, where ours is green. The medallion in that example is based on a background of tight scrolls, where ours is on a striking blue ground. The David Collection dish shares not only the same palmette at the middle, but also a very similar surrounding border of alternating leaves and pomegranates. Around the edge of the cavetto of both the David Collection dish and ours, are the same lobed motifs. So close are the two that it seems probable that they are the product of the same Iznik atelier.