Dating iznik pottery

Iznik pottery, or Iznik ware, named after the town of İznik in western Anatolia where it was made, . The excavations have not provided a clear date for the pottery but it is assumed to belong to the 15th century. The archaeological evidence from.
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This early phase in Iznik production saw impressive vessels, usually painted in a bold cobalt-blue and white, and often with patterns reserved in white on the blue ground. The decoration is heavily informed by that of other media, such as manuscript illumination, although many designs are also borrowed from the Chinese porcelains that were prized at the Ottoman court. Turquoise blue is introduced, and decoration is largely painted on a white ground. Designs become simpler, but still frequently take Chinese motifs for inspiration.

End of the s: Manganese purple and olive-green are added to the palette of blue and turquoise. Often large, round motifs with scale-like patterning are used in the decoration, which sometimes represents pomegranates or artichokes.

Changes and evolution

Increasingly, one sees the naturalistic design that comes to dominate production. This is the phase under which Iznik reaches its highest point. Artists combine a rich repertoire of often naturalistic motifs.

Iznik Tiles by Unesco awarded world famous artist Mehmet Gursoy

The Ottoman Empire is at its height and enormous quantities of Iznik are commissioned, including large numbers of tiles destined to cover the walls of the buildings built by the chief court architect, Sinan. A strong turquoise, emerald-green, black and deep-red are added to the spectrum of colours, and outlines are often drawn in black.

The history of İznik ceramics

An Iznik pottery dish, Ottoman Turkey, circa The 17 th century: Coarser versions of the productions of the previous century were produced, the colours of works deteriorated — with red often appearing slightly brown — and decoration became less detailed, more obviously executed freehand.

During this period, the quality of the paste and glaze also deteriorates, with the glaze taking on a bluish tone and becoming more prone to craquelure. Many dishes have a central rosette surrounded by concentric bands of gadroons. From the late 15th century, potters in Iznik began producing wares that were decorated in cobalt blue on a white fritware body under a clear glaze. Both the manufacturing technique and the underglaze designs were very different from that used in the production of Miletus ware.

Fritware had been made in the Near East from the 13th century, but Iznik fritware, achieving a white surface, was a major innovation. Fritware also called stonepaste is a composite material made from quartz sand mixed with small amounts of finely ground glass called frit and some clay. When fired, the glass frit melts and binds the other components together.

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In the 13th century the town of Kashan in Iran was an important centre for the production of fritware. In Kashan the frit was prepared by mixing powdered quartz with soda which acted as a flux. The mixture was then heated in a kiln. As the fritware paste lacked plasticity and was difficult to work on the wheel, vessels were seldom made in one piece. Instead they were formed in separate sections that were allowed to dry and then stuck together using the fritware paste. This additive technique meant that there was a tendency for the final vessels to have slightly angular shapes.

A lump of fritware paste would have been rolled out into a sheet much like when a cook rolls out pastry. The sheet would have been placed on the mould to form the inside of the dish.


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The underside of the dish would have been shaped using a template as the mould was rotated on the wheel. When the paste was partly dry the foliate rim would have been sculptured by hand. The fritware body was coated with a thin layer of white slip. This had a similar composition to the fritware paste used for the body, but the components were more finely ground and more carefully selected to avoid iron impurities that would discolour the white surface. It is likely that an organic binder was also added such as tragacanth gum. For some designs the outlines were pounced through a stencil.

Dating iznik pottery. BBC - A History of the World - Object : The David Vases

In the early period only cobalt blue was used for decoration. The cobalt ore was probably obtained from the village of Qamsar near the town of Kashan in central Iran. This was followed by purple manganese oxide , green, grey and black. The distinctive bright bole red was introduced in around Even after the introduction of a range of different pigments, vessels were sometimes still produced with a restricted palette.

The wares were glazed with a lead- alkaline -tin glaze, whose composition has been found from analysis to be lead oxide percent, silica 45—55 percent, sodium oxide 8—14 percent and tin oxide 4—7 percent. In the final decades of the 15th century, potters in Iznik began producing blue-and-white fritware ceramics with designs that were clearly influenced by the Ottoman court in Istanbul.

There are no surviving written documents that provide details on how this came about. The earliest specific mention of Iznik pottery is in the accounts for the Imperial kitchens of the Tokapi palace for — where the purchase of 97 vessels is recorded. The vessels have separate areas of Ottoman arabesque and Chinese floral designs. The combination of these two styles is referred to as Rumi-Hatayi where Rumi denotes the Ottoman arabesque patterns and Hatayi the Chinese inspired floral patterns. Although both the use of cobalt blue on a white background and the shape of large dishes were clearly influenced by Chinese porcelain from the Yuan and Ming dynasties, the early Iznik fritware dishes were far from being direct copies of Chinese designs.

During the first two decades of the 16th century there was a gradual shift in style with the introduction of a brighter blue, more use of a white background and a greater use of floral motifs. There was a tradition of hanging pottery lamps in mosques dating back at least to the 13th century. The opaque pottery lamps would have been completely useless for lighting and they instead served a symbolic and decorative function. After the conquest of Constantinople in , the Ottoman sultans started a huge building programme.

As a result of this demand, tiles dominated the output of the Iznik potteries. Jugs, hanging lamps, cups, bowls and dishes were produced, inspired by metalwork and illuminated books as well as Chinese ceramics.

Many large dishes were made with looser designs, incorporating ships, animals, trees and flowers. The dishes appear to have been made for display, as most have pierced footrings so that they can be hung up, but they have been observed also to be scratched from use.

Iznik and Ottoman ceramics

In the second half of the sixteenth century the more natural quatre fleurs style was also introduced. This used a repertoire of stylised tulips, carnations, roses and hyacinths. The so-called 'Golden Horn ware' was a variation on the blue-and-white decoration that was popular from the late s to s. The narrow rims of dishes are painted with a meandering pattern. The small bowls and a large flat rims are similar in shape to maiolica tondino dishes that were popular in Italy between and Vessels were decorated for the first time with sage green and pale purple, in addition to cobalt blue and turquoise , and form a transition towards full-fledged polychrome ceramics.

A key object from this period is a ceramic vessel in the form of a mosque lamp with an inscribed date that is now in the British Museum. The lamp was discovered on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in the middle of the 19th century and is believed to have been associated with the refurbishment of the Dome of the Rock initiated by Suleiman the Magnificent. The lamp is decorated in green, black and two shades of blue. The design includes pale blue cloud-banks, small-scale arabesques on a green ground and a row of tulip buds in dark-blue cartouches.

The lamp can be used to date a group of other vessels including some large footed basins. Although the basins are quite different from the lamp in overall style, each basin shares motifs present on the lamp.

An innovative technology

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