Dish decorated with boat

This dish has a convex body and rests on a ring-shaped stand. The interior has a decoration painted in shimmering hues of blue, green and brown on a white ground. At the centre a three-masted sailing ship resembling a galleon rides the waves, while in the waters below three small fish swim in the same direction. The inner rim has a “rock and wave” decoration, a stylised motif of Chinese origin.

Ottoman ceramics enjoyed tremendous growth thanks to the output of the workshops of the city of Iznik, ancient Nicaea. Iznik developed into a leading centre of ceramic ware production whose workshops were active between the late fifteenth century and the first decade of the seventeenth century. The bleached paste is rich in silica and lead frit, as are the engobe coating it and the glaze applied on the painted decoration. This composition gave the pottery a sheen which established the reputation of this new production. Until about 1520, Iznik ceramics were distinguished by blue motifs made from cobalt powder on a white ground, a two-colour process directly inspired by Chinese porcelain that reached the West via the Silk Road. The chromatic range was subsequently enriched with turquoise and, then, around 1540, with lime, mauve and grey. From 1557–60 on, red began to be added to the palette.

From the late sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth century, ships were among the decorations most commonly used on Iznik ceramics. This prevalence reflects the importance of the navy in the Mediterranean for Europeans and Ottomans alike. The galleon is a sixteenth-century sailing ship invented by the Portuguese. Different types of boats figure on a variety of ceramic, metal and painted supports such as a pitcher in the Louvre[1], a dish from Copenhagen[2], a representation of the port of Lepanto[3] and the scabbard of a yatagan from Algiers[4]. Later, under the influence of goods imported from China by the East India companies, the boat theme recurs on Delftware from Holland.

The sailing vessel motif was a Mediterranean theme that was already popular in ancient times, when different kinds of boats appeared on Roman mosaics in Africa such as those of Sousse and Dougga (Tunisia) and the mosaics of Ostia (Italy), which abounded in naval scenes. They also appear on dishes in the qasaba of Tunis, representing ships attributed in all likelihood to the Hafsid era between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, which probably reveals the influence of Aragon[5]. Other Andalusian creations dating from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries display the same decoration, as do fourteenth-century mudéjar earthenware tiles that were produced in Paterna in the province of Valencia.

[1] Musée du Louvre, Department of Islamic Art, second quarter of sixteenth century, inv. OA 7880/61.

[2] Turkey, Iznik, late sixteenth century, Copenhagen, Davids Samling, 24/1975.

[3] Turkey, 1540–1550, Istanbul, Topkapi Sarayi Müzesi, 17/378.

[4] Sabre with scabbard, Algeria, 1824, Algiers, Musée national des Antiquités et des Arts islamiques, II. MI. 103.

[5] Daoulatli and Louhichi, 1995, p. 185.