Provenance: Collection A. Imbert (1865–1943), Rome, no. 25.R.V (per label on the base);
Lagonico Collection no. 25, thence by descent until;
Sotheby's, Monaco, 7 December 1991, lot 40;
Private Collection, Austria.

A shallow Iznik dish with flanged rim, decorated with a cobalt blue strip and overlapping white prunus blossoms. The well is decorated on a ground of white slip with red carnations blooming from a tuft of grass. The snapped stems of the carnations represent a move towards naturalism, typically observed from ca. 1565 to ca. 1585.[1] Above that, two large blue flowering palms, in the form of feathery saz leaves, frame a bouquet of red prunus blossoms. Both the flowering palm and the bouquet motifs emerged in ca. 1565, this latter reflecting contemporary trends in Ottoman embroidery.[2]

A dish with a similar central bouquet of prunus blossoms, flanked by hyacinths rather than saz leaves, is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (no. 952-1898), and dated to the second half of the 16th century. Other dishes with large flower palms are in the Musée Ariana, Geneva (no. AR 12192), dated to ca. 1575, and the Musée de la Renaissance, Château Écouen (no. E.Cl.8390), dated to ca. 1590.

[1] Atasoy, Nurhan, and Julian Raby. Iznik: The Pottery of Ottoman Turkey. 2nd ed. London: Alexandrian Press, 1989. p. 121.

[2] Hitzel, Frédéric, and Mireille Jacotin. Iznik : L’aventure d’une collection. Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 2005, p. 147, p. 221.