Lot 168. A large Iznik pottery dish, Ottoman Turkey, circa 1590. Estimate £8,000 - £12,000 ($11,376 - $17,064). Price Realized £10,000 ($14,220). Photo Christie's Image Ltd 2016

With sloping rim on short foot, the white ground painted in cobalt-blue, red, green and black with a central roundel filled with elegant rumi motif on green ground, the cavetto with a band of alternating blue and red cusped motifs, the border with wave-and-rock pattern, the exterior with alternating green rosettes and blue stylised floral sprays, foot drilled, repaired breaks, small areas of restoration; 14in. (35.5cm.) diam.

Provenance: Anon sale, in these Rooms, 25th April 1995, lot 296

Note: Interlaced roundels of white arabesques forming a six-pointed interlace design against dark ground was a feature in some of the earliest blue and white Iznik ceramics (Nurhan Atasoy and Julian Raby, Iznik. The Pottery of Ottoman Turkey, London, 1989, pl.303 for example). Indeed it was also a feature of contemporaneous Ottoman design in other media. The design on this dish is a development of that. The pattern has gained a density but retained the flow more successfully than many others. A dish of similar date and design is in the Ömer Koç collection (Hülya Bilgi, The Ömer Koç Iznik Collection, Istanbul, 2015, no.212, p.458). 

Christie's. ART OF THE ISLAMIC & INDIAN WORLDS, 21 April 2016, London, King Street