OTTOMAN TURKEY, CIRCA 1580

The upper part of the design on this dish features a plant pot flanked by diagonally-set saz leaves. It is similar in conception to that on the tiles in the 'imperial recess' of the Selimiye mosque in Edirne, allowing them to be dated to around 1572 (Walter B. Denny, Iznik: the Artistry of Ottoman Ceramics, London, 2004, p.101). The design is also found on dishes, where it was often accompanied by floral sprays to either side of the saz leaves. On this example, the long finely-drawn carnation plants are drawn having snapped in the middle, associating our dish with a group all featuring the same distinctive broken stem (Frédéric Hitzel and Mireille Jacotin, Iznik: l'aventure d'une collection, Paris, 2005, p.177). A dish with the same overlapping flowerhead border and a similar field design is in the Musée National de la Renaissance, Chateau d'Échouen (inv.no.E.Cl.8210, Hitzel and Jacotin, op.cit., no.231, p.182). Another dish with a similar design, though somewhat simplified, was sold in these Rooms, 26 April 2012, lot 264.

For a discussion of the Lagonico collection, see the following lot.