Lot 111. An Iznik pottery dish, Ottoman Turkey, circa 1590; 31.1cm diam. Price realised GBP 18,900 (GBP 6,000 – GBP 8,000). © Christies 2023

With sloping rim on short foot, the white ground decorated in cobalt-blue, bole-red, green and black, with a central rosette issuing eight lobed panels into the cavetto against a fish-scale ground, the rim with stylised 'wave and rock' motif, the exterior with alternating blue medallions.

Lot 112. An Iznik pottery dish, Ottoman Turkey, circa 1580; 29.3cm diam. Price realised GBP 23,940 (GBP 20,000 – GBP 30,000). © Christies 2023

With sloping rim on short foot, the interior painted with a central trilobed palmette issuing curling saz leaves forming a medallion and terminating in half-palmettes, the interior of the medallion with dense blue fish-scale, red heart-shape centred along the upper edge, around the medallion similar fish-scale in green, the border with stylised wave and rock pattern, the exterior with alternating paired blue tulips and flowerheads, repaired breaks, areas of restoration.

Provenance: Anon sale, Sotheby's London, 12 April 1989, lot 75
Anon sale, Christie's London, 31 March 2009, lot 184.

Note: The fish-scale pattern which covers the ground of this dish was first used to decorate a jug in the form of a fish in the Benaki Museum, Athens, dating from the 1520s (Inv.no.10; Nurhan Atasoy and Julian Raby, Iznik, the Pottery of Ottoman Turkey, London, 1989, pl. 124, p. 106). In the late 1570s and 80s it became popular to enliven the background of vessels with fish scale motif, as seen here.

Lot 113. An Iznik pottery dish, Ottoman Turkey, circa 1570; 31cm diam. Price realised GBP 94,500 (GBP 80,000 – GBP 120,000). © Christies 2023

With sloping rim on short foot, the white ground painted in bole-red, green, cobalt-blue and black, with a central cloudband surrounded by floral and palmette sprays, the cusped rim with 'wave and rock' motif, the reverse with alternating rosette and paired tulips, the underside of the foot with lavender-blue slip.

Provenance: Victor Adda, brother of Fernand Adda, and thence by descent until sold,
Christie's London, 9 October 1990, lot 140.

Note: This important Iznik dish has a number of unusual features. The bole-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. The bold central cloud-band motif also relates to the similar motifs on a mosque lamp executed in the 'Damascus' palette and dated to 1549. This motif is also seen as the central motif on a dish in Berlin (J. Zick-Nissen et al., Turkische Kunst und Kultur aus osmanischer Zeit, Recklinghausen, 1985, vol. 2, p.147, no.2⁄20) that dates from the middle of the sixteenth century.

Most unusual is the underside of the foot which is painted in a lavender-blue slip. Around 1570 this colour was used as the ground for a small group of Iznik vessels. A jug painted in lavender slip was recently sold in these Rooms, 27 October 2022, lot 142. It appears probable that its appearance on the base of this dish was a trial before it was used to cover the whole. A similar treatment of the foot is seen on a dish formerly in the Brocklebank collection which has an interior decorated in a blue and white 'wheatsheaf' design. The underside of the foot of that dish is covered in a pink rather than blue slip, another coloured slip that was used for the ground of a limited group of pieces.

Lot 118. A blue and white Kütahya bowl, Western Anatolia, 18th century; 16cm diam. Price realised GBP 6,048 (GBP 5,000 – GBP 7,000). © Christies 2023

The hemispherical bowl on vertical foot, the white ground painted in blue with a single floral spray in a central roundel, a thin band of decoration around the inside of the rim, the exterior with alternating palmette and tulip motifs, maker's mark on the base.

Note: Elements of this bowl are paralleled in an 18th century blue and white Kütahya dish in the Victoria and Albert Museum (acc. no. 597-1874).

Lot 119. A blue and white Iznik pottery dish, Ottoman Turkey, circa 1535-40; 31.7cm diam. Price realised GBP 75,600 (GBP 8,000 – GBP 12,000). © Christies 2023

With sloping rim on short foot, the white interior painted in turquoise and cobalt blue, the central roundel containing a group of tulips, the cavetto with alternating rosettes and buds, the cobalt-blue rim with alternating white rosettes and turquoise stylised pomegranates containing three flowers, the exterior decorated with scrolling vines issuing flowers, large hair crack.

Note: Nurhan Atasoy and Julian Raby suggested the name of ‘The Potters’ Style’ for the group of wares that were developed in the 1520s, painted in a much looser style than those that pre-date them (Nurhan Atasoy and Julian Raby, Iznik. The Pottery of Ottoman Turkey, London, 1989, pp.115 and 118). This dish belongs to a group produced in Iznik around 1535-40. Atasoy and Raby note that vessels of this type might have been made both at the finest level, but also on smaller scale and with simpler decoration that would have appealed to a broader customer base (Atasoy and Raby, op.cit., p.142). Similar examples to ours, but on grander scale include a deep dish in the Victoria & Albert Museum which has a very similar use of colour, and a prominence of tulips in its decorative repertoire (inv.no.185-1892; Atasoy and Raby, op.cit., no.321). The back of our dish, which has a scrolling flowering vine within a finely drawn cusped border is very similar to a dish of the same period in the Sadberk Hanim Museum (SHM 12304-P.508; Hülya Bilgi, Dance of Fire. Iznik Tiles and Ceramics in the Sadberk Hanim Museum and Ömer M. Koç Collections, exhibition catalogue, Istanbul, 2009, no.9).

Lot 124. Property from a Private French Collection. An Iznik pottery dish, Ottoman Turkey, circa 1585-90; 30cmdiam. Price realised GBP 201,600 (GBP 70,000 – GBP 100,000). © Christies 2023

With sloping rim on short foot, the cavetto with a central medallion surrounded by stylized leaves and pomegranates against a blue ground, the border with lappet design on a turquoise ground.

Provenance: With J. Nicolier, Paris by 1989.

Literature: Nurhan Atasoy and Julian Raby: Iznik, the Pottery of Ottoman Turkey, London, 1989, no.491, pp.248-249.

Note: 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.