A fritware dish decorated underglaze on a ground of white slip with a large turquoise, blue, and bole red ewer surrounded by a curling vine of saz leaves and carnations. The thin everted rim is decorated with a red key key fret border. The reverse of the dish is painted with blue and turquoise floral buds.

Towards the end of the 16th century, the ornate floral compositions typically associated with Iznik ceramics began to be replaced by single central motifs, such as boats, people, and ewers like this one.

An Iznik dish decorated with a central red ewer in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London (accession no. C.2044-1910) is dated to ca. 1590–1600. dish in the Manufacture et musée nationaux, Sèvres (no. MNC22695) with similar floral sprays is dated to ca. 1585. Several examples featuring a central vessel surrounded by a single swirling vine, like ours, are in the Musée national de la Renaissance, Écouen.[1] Further examples are in the collection of Ömer Koç.[2]

[1] Hitzel, Frédéric, and Mireille Jacotin. Iznik: L’aventure d’une Collection. Paris: 2005, pp. 313–315, figs 462–467.
[2] Bilgi, Hülya. Iznik: The Ömer Koç Collection. Istanbul: Vehbi Koç Foundation, 2015, cats 221–226.