An Iznik pottery dish. Ottoman, Turkey, third quarter 16th century. Photo: Christie's Images Ltd 2012, 

With sloping cusped rim on short foot, the white interior with four delicately drawn pale green floral sprays in a border of similar floral sprays, the border outlined in strong cobalt-blue, the exterior with alternating pale grey floral motifs, small repair to rim; 11 7/8in. (30.2cm.) diam. Lot 238. Estimate £20,000 - £30,000 ($31,860 - $47,790)

Provenance: E. Grünberg and E.M. Torn, Four Centuries of Ottoman Taste, France, 1988, no.21 

Exhibited: E. Grünberg and E.M. Torn, Four Centuries of Ottoman Taste, France, 6 April - 22 April 1988, no.21 

Notes: This dish relates closely to the albarello of the following lot in terms of the Chinese influence that is visible in its decorative repertoire. Both make use of feathery flowers which spring from thin tendrils that also issue gently cusping leaves. In many ways it is close to a group of dishes decorated with similar flowers (although they issue from scrolls closer to those on the albarello and listed in the note accompanying that lot). Like many of those it has a design centered on a rosette. Unlike those however, the cavetto of this dish is not decorated with scrolls but rather with floral sprays whose stems are gathered with stylized cloud bands. Floral sprays with a similar cloud band join, though slightly simpler, decorate an Iznik dish in the Antaki collection in Aleppo which is dated circa 1570 (Nurhan Atasoy and Julian Raby, Iznik, London, 1989, fig.446, pp.240-41). These floral sprays seem in some ways to relate to two dishes in a group that Atasoy and Raby term the "Flowerpot with Rock Work" dishes, which share quatrefoil designs based around a central rosette and separated by minor floral sprays and small dots or filler motifs (Atasoy and Raby, op.cit., figs.472-73, pp.244-45). Another related dish is in the Sadberk Hanim Museum (Hülya Bilgi, Dance of Fire, Iznik Tiles and Ceramics in the Sadberk Hanim Museum and Ömer M. Koç Collections, exhibition catalogue, Istanbul, 2009, no. 212, p.352),

Christie's. Art of the Islamic and Indian Worlds 26 April 2012 London, King Street www.christies.com