Plate with floral decoration

This round plate without a rim with a small ring-shaped base is decorated with carnations, roses and “saz” leaves in blue, red and green. It is a piece from the well known and well studied candiane production, these Italian pieces made from the first half of the seventeenth century imitating Ottoman ceramics from Iznik at their apogee, under the reign of the sultans Selim II (r. 1566-1574) and Murâd III (r. 1574-1595).

The inscription on the back of the piece “S. Chandiana 1633” was originally a term attributed to this group of ceramics at the end of the nin century. Then sixteenth  and seventeenth century Italians for their part named productions in the Iznik style “alla turschesca”.

Many reflections have been made on the meaning of the term “chandiana”. In fact, it was first linked to the name of a small village near Padua and the site of an ancient monastery. Currently, the interpretations is different and the term “chandiana” is considered to be the name of a sister (“sour”, the letter S crossed through before the name it refers to) who visibly entered a convent in Venice in 1633. Other comparable plates carry different names following the crossed S preceding a date which enables us to accredit this thesis[1].

Technically, the differences are notable between the plate in the musée de Sèvres and the Ottoman pieces it is inspired from. The Italian plate is not fashioned in the same type of clay as the one which gave Iznik its reputation[2]: the white background which the decoration is applied to is obtained by the application of a glaze made opalescent with tin oxide. This is the technique traditionally used in Italian majolica. The rendering of the colours is equally not the same. The famous Iznik bright red, which appeared in the middle of the sixteenth century in Turkish ceramics, obtained by the application of a thick layer of enrobing made from ferrous oxide mixed with quartz, is replaced here with a brown tint which does not have the same sheen. The green colouring, used conjointly with red in the Ottoman pieces, fushioned in baking. We can see this same defect in a number of Italian candiane, for example a cup with many lobed edges[3].

This plate has a decoration inside a blue double edging. A bouquet extends supply from a leafy base. Two types of flowers are depicted: carnations and roses, taken from the famous “quatrefoil” motif which appeared at the end of the 1540s in the painting workshops of the Ottoman court, then under the tutelage of Kara Memi. The large jagged undulating leaf which occupies a central position in the composition is taken from the “saz” style of Iranian origin, very frequently used in Iznik ceramics from the second half of the sixteenth century. Among many examples, the plate preserved at the musée national de la Renaissance du château d’Écouen[4] displays a magnificent illustration of the combination of these two repertories. We may observe that the imitation is faithful in detail. In fact, the “saz” leaf, which is in front of the floral stalks, creates a feeling of depth already perceptible in Ottoman pieces.

Italian candiane were produced throughout the seventeenth and until the eighteenth centuries. the shapes of the pieces are extremely varied (plates, lobed cups, gourds) and for some, give evidence of a production destined mainly for daily use[5].

[2] In Iznik, the clay was silicious from the 1480s.

[3] Crespina in earthenware with decoration painted on opaque stanniferous glaze under transparent glaze, seventeenth century, Padua, Museo d’Arte Medievale, inv.843.

[4] Plate, Turkey, Iznik, c. 1580, Écouen, musée national de la Renaissance, château d’Écouen, inv.E.Cl.8432.

[5] Plate with beard, Venetia, seventeenth century, majolica, Venice, Museo Civico Correr, inv. CI. IV, 97.