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Dish with 'Kaleidoscope' Design

ca. 1580–85
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 460
This dynamically decorated sixteenth-century dish in cobalt blue was produced at the famous kilns at Iznik, in western Anatolia. Stylized variations of lotus petals, ultimately of Chinese inspiration but geometrically patterned into a radiating sunburst of powerful Islamic design, bear witness to one of the most fruitful cultural exchanges in history: the mutual influences flourishing for centuries between the artists, especially potters, of eastern and western Asia. Chinese influences on Islamic art peaked in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when nearly all Asia came under the sway of the Great Khans, the Mongol overlords ruling from Beijing. The Ilkhanids who governed the Near East from their capital at Tabriz, in modern northwestern Iran, imported precious Chinese wares, commanding local Muslim artists to study Chinese technique and design. The sixteenth-century potters of the Ottoman court though set at the westernmost limit of the Asian world, still pursued–and creatively renewed with great flair and pride–the traditions of the Tabriz school.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Dish with 'Kaleidoscope' Design
  • Date: ca. 1580–85
  • Geography: Made in Turkey, Iznik
  • Medium: Stonepaste; polychrome painted under transparent glaze
  • Dimensions: H. 2 11/16 in. (6.8 cm)
    Diam. of rim: 13 3/4 in. (34.9 cm)
  • Classification: Ceramics
  • Credit Line: Gift of Philippe and Edith de Montebello, 1991
  • Object Number: 1991.172
  • Curatorial Department: Islamic Art

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Dish Depicting Two Birds among Flowering Plants, Stonepaste; polychrome painted under transparent glaze
Dish Depicting Two Birds among Flowering Plants
ca. 1575–90
Tile with Floral and Cloud-band Design, Stonepaste; polychrome painted under transparent glaze
Tile with Floral and Cloud-band Design
ca. 1578
Dish with Bird, Rabbit, and Quadruped Design, Stonepaste; polychrome painted under transparent glaze
Dish with Bird, Rabbit, and Quadruped Design
last quarter 16th century
Dish with Floral Design, Stonepaste; polychrome painted under transparent glaze
Dish with Floral Design
ca. 1545–60
Dish with 'Tughra-illuminator' Design, Stonepaste; painted in blue under transparent glaze
Dish with 'Tughra-illuminator' Design
ca. 1540–50

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