Tabak dish with ship design, Turkey, probably Kütahya, 19th century
Siliceous ceramic dish with polychrome painted decoration on white slip under a transparent glaze, of a three-masted ship sailing on the waves and surrounded by tchi clouds floating in the sky, the marli decorated with waves and rocks. On the reverse, four blue-tinted spiral elements.
D. 33 cm
Scratches, cracks, several chips in glaze and paste, trace of scratching (sampling?) on reverse.
While the iconography of the ship multiplies in 17th-century Ottoman ceramics from Iznik, several elements rule out such an attribution for this dish. The deep blue of the two central sails and the hull, the lavender blue of the sea, but also the spinach green of the fanciful floral frieze on the hull or the leaves surrounding the sailboat, and finally the brown hue of the manganese oxide are all colors that deviate from the usual chromatic range. In addition, the swell animating the sea, as well as the contours of the waves and rocks adorning the marl, are painted with a certain clumsiness that is found on the marl of the ewer-decorated dish Inv. n°217 from the Kıraç Foundation Collection of Istanbul's Pera Museum, attributed to Kütahya at the end of the 19th century. This same attribution was used for a dish very similar to ours sold at Christie's, London, on March 19, 2020, lot 192, and is tempting to give to this object. From the 18th century onwards, the factories of the town of Kütahya in western Turkey, already active in the fine Ottoman period, definitively took over Iznik production as the Sultanian workshops declined. While the influence of Iznik pieces is undeniable on Kütahya ceramics, the ship remains a rare subject for the workshops of this second center.
Expert: Camille CELIER
Estim. 600 - 800 EUR
