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A circular dish covered with decorative blue flowers.

A plant with seven flowers along one long stem which is arranged so that they fit within the edges of the plate. At the bottom two leaves twist together, from which the stem emerges. It rises straight up to a large flower in the middle of the plate before continuing and bending to the left, there is a closed flowerbud and five flowers at different stages of bloom dotted along the stem as it follows the edge of the plate. The flowers are dark and light blue, and the leaves are light green and spiky.

Gallery Text

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, three imperial powers dominated the Islamic world—the Ottomans, the Safavids, and the Mughals. Militarily, the Ottomans were the most formidable, and their realm was the most extensive. With the capital in Istanbul, the empire spread at its height to Africa, Europe, and Asia. Despite the empire’s diversity, the Ottomans developed a remarkably unified artistic idiom. The court established a design studio whose models were disseminated to court workshops specializing in particular media. Two artists who directed the design studio during the sixteenth century—Shahquli and Kara Memi—created distinct styles that defined Ottoman visual art for centuries.

Working with court designs, ceramic artists in Istanbul and Iznik experimented with an increasing range of colors from the late fifteenth through the sixteenth century. The taste for the blue-and-white palette of Chinese porcelain expanded to include turquoise, then purple and sage green, and ultimately the famous bright red and emerald green. In the sixteenth century Ottoman rulers preferred Chinese porcelain for their tableware, though the wealthy favored Iznik ceramics, which were also exported in great quantities to Europe.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
2011.542
Title
Dish with Saz Spray Decoration
Classification
Vessels
Work Type
vessel
Date
1540-1550
Places
Creation Place: Middle East, Türkiye (Turkey)
Period
Ottoman period
Culture
Ottoman
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/190789

Location

Location
Level 2, Room 2550, Art from Islamic Lands, The Middle East and North Africa
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Physical Descriptions

Medium
Fritware with painting in blue, green, turquoise, and purple under clear glaze
Dimensions
Diam. 27.5 cm (10 13/16 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Sir Caspar Purdon Clark, London. Frederick Anthony White, London (possibly 1902 - 1925), sold; [through Christies, London, 15 December 1925, no. 43], to; E. L. Paget, city unknown (1925-1949), sold; [through Sotheby & Co., London, 11 October, 1949 no. 57]. Adda Collection, city unknown (by 1959). Stuart Cary Welch Jr., Warner, New Hampshire (by 1969-2008), by inheritance; to Edith I. Welch, Warner, New Hampshire (2008-2011), gift; to Harvard Art Museums.






Caspar Purdon Clark (1846-1911)

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, The Stuart Cary Welch Collection, Gift of Edith I. Welch in memory of Stuart Cary Welch
Accession Year
2011
Object Number
2011.542
Division
Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact
am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
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Descriptions

Description
The design of this dish incorporates two ingeniously painted floral sprays. Laden with blossoms, the longer stem rises up the middle, angles sharply downward, and then encircles the dish, intersecting the shorter stem. Such meticulously drawn intertwining branches with serrated leaves are characteristic of the ink drawings attributed to Shahquli, an émigré artist from Iran who headed the Ottoman court studio from 1540s to 1556. This studio supplied designs that were then executed in various media. Working with court designs, ceramic artists in Istanbul and Iznik experimented with an increasing range of colors. An expansion from a simpler palette of blue and turquoise, the four colors used on this dish were further enriched with red and emerald green after the 1550s. Its complex design and painting technique, especially the tonal rendering of the purple, distinguish this dish from all other Ottoman ceramics that use this palette, indicating an exceptional undertaking.

Publication History

  • Bernard Rackham, Islamic Pottery and Italian Maiolica: Illustrated Catalogue of a Private Collection, Faber and Faber (London, 1959), p. 27, cat. no. 69, plate 29
  • Stuart Cary Welch, "Two Drawings, a Tile, a Dish, and a Pair of Scissors", Islamic Art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, ed. Richard Ettinghausen (New York, 1972), Figs. 7, 8
  • Walter B. Denny, "Blue-And-White Islamic Pottery on Chinese Themes", Boston Museum Bulletin (1974), vol. 72, no. 368, pp. 76-98, p.87, fig. 12
  • Walter B. Denny, The Ceramics of the Mosque of Rustem Pasha and the Environment of Change, Garland Publishers, Inc. (London and New York, 1977), figs. 169, 170
  • Walter B. Denny, "Ceramics", Turkish Art, ed. Esin Atil, Smithsonian Institution Press (Washington D.C and New York, 1980), pp. 239-297, Illustration 3
  • Walter B. Denny, "Turkish Ceramics and Turkish Painting: The Role of the Paper Cartoon in Turkish Ceramics Production", Essays in Islamic Art and Architecture, ed. Abbas Daneshvari, Undena Publications (Malibu, CA, 1981), pp. 29-36, fig. 3
  • Esin Atil, The Age of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent, National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C, 1987), p. 259, fig. 182, p. 32, cat no. 182
  • Julian Raby and Nurhan Atasoy, Iznik: The Pottery of Ottoman Turkey, ed. Yanni Petsopoulos, Alexandria Press (London, 1989), pp. 133-135, fig.221 (black and white), 352 (color)
  • Linda Komaroff, ed., Gifts of the Sultan: The Arts of Gift Giving at the Islamic Courts, exh. cat., Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Yale University Press (U.S.) (New Haven and London, 2011), p. 162-163, fig. 148.

Exhibition History

  • The Age of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 06/14/1987 - 08/07/1987
  • A Grand Legacy: Arts of the Ottoman Empire, Harvard University Art Museums, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 10/09/1999 - 01/02/2000
  • Gifts of the Sultan: The Arts of Giving at Islamic Courts, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, 06/05/2011 - 09/05/2011; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, 10/23/2011 - 01/15/2012; Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, 03/18/2012 - 06/02/2012
  • Recent Acquisitions, Part II: Building the Collection, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 06/19/2012 - 09/29/2012
  • 32Q: 2550 Islamic, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 01/01/2050

Subjects and Contexts

  • Google Art Project

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu