Vase

Vase

Ottoman Iznik (ancient Nicaea) was the center of production of the finest pottery in the Islamic world from about 1490 through 1700. The high quality of Iznik pottery lies in the mastery of the technique and the rich variety of designs. Iznik pottery is characterized by its hard, white body material covered with a fine white slip which provides the smooth background for the brilliant colors of the painted design. All is then protected under a clear and even glaze. The designs cover a wide range of floral and plant motifs as well as geometric patterns and inscriptions. There is also a development in the palette which moves from a simpler blue-and-white combination to the most complex polychrome scheme.

This class of pottery owes its emergence to the accelerated demand for tiles for the decoration of the large scale sixteenth-century public and private building projects as well as the growing taste for luxury ceramic vessles for use in the court, among the wealthy classes, and for export to Europe.

The vase illustrated here represents one of the earlier phases of the Iznik pottery development. Typical are the cobalt-and-turquoise blue combination and the stylized flowers strung from a coiled stem and made to wrap the body of the vase in a repeat pattern. The shape of this vase, unusual in Ottoman pottery, recalls a type of metal jug best known from the fifteenth-century Timurid world in eastern Iran. The addition of the bronze collar was probably occasioned to cover chipping on the rim of the vase.

Sussan Babaie in [Walker et al. 1994]

Fernand Adda Collection, Egypt (by 1959–65; sale, Palais Galliéra, Paris,December 3, 1965, no. 817, to Marthe Baschet for MMA)

Mexico City. Colegio de San Ildefonso. "Arte Islámico del Museo Metropolitano de Arte de Nueva York," September 30, 1994–January 8, 1995, no. 57.

Rackham, Bernard. "Illustrated Catalogue of a Private Collection [Adda]." In Islamic Pottery and Italian Maiolica. London: Faber and Faber, 1959. no. 60, p. 25, ill. pl. 25A.

"Paris, December 3, 1965." In Collection d'un Grand Amateur (Adda). Paris, December 3, 1965. no. 817.

Atasoy, Nurhan, and Julian Raby. Iznik: The Pottery of Ottoman Turkey, edited by Yanni Petsopoulos. London: Thames and Hudson, 1989. no. 181, p. 119, ill. (b/w).

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Daniel S. Walker, Arturo Ponce Guadián, Sussan Babaie, Stefano Carboni, Aimee Froom, Marie Lukens Swietochowski, Tomoko Masuya, Annie Christine Daskalakis-Matthews, Abdallah Kahli, and Rochelle Kessler. "Colegio de San Ildefonso, Septiembre de 1994–Enero de 1995." In Arte Islámico del Museo Metropolitano de Arte de Nueva York. Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1994. no. 57, pp. 158–59, ill. (b/w).