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Iznik tabak dish with tulips and hyacinths
Ottoman Empire, T…
See original version (French)
87
-
Iznik tabak dish with tulips and hyacinths
Ottoman Empire, T…
See original version (French)
Estimate €40,000 - €60,000
Voluntary lot
Description
Iznik tabak dish with tulips and hyacinths
Ottoman Empire, Turkey, Iznik, circa 1575-1600
Siliceous ceramic, decorated in polychrome underglaze in cobalt blue, emerald green, turquoise and thick tomato red in slight relief. The central composition, structured along a strict vertical axis, displays a bouquet sprouting from a clump of grasses: two long tapering tulips, their corollas inverted in red and blue plumes, frame a vertical cluster of hyacinths with bells tightly held in cobalt reserves, the whole surmounted by a medallion in bloom.
The rim is animated by a characteristic decoration of blue and black spiral scrolls known as "foaming waves".
The reverse, with ring foot, is punctuated with a frieze of small rosettes alternating blue and green and bears, in the centre, a large triangular printed and handwritten label stamped with the monogram C.D.A. (Charles Davillier), the words "Vente Davillier 1887" and the indication "Rhodes".
Condition: two suspension holes (on the rim and heel), slight chips around the rim, slight shrinkage of the red enamel due to firing.
D. 27.5 cm (10.8 in.)
Provenance :
Former collection of Baron Jean-Charles Davillier (1823-1883), inv. no. P. 2130 ;
His sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, Me Charles Pillet, 2 May 1887, lot no. 401;
Aguttes sale, Lyon, 25 October 2012, no. 215.
Bibliography:
Catalogue of the Davillier sale, Paris, 1887, no. 401.
Auctioneers' archives. D48E3 74, Procès-verbal de la vente après-décès du baron Davillier, Drouot, 29-30 April 1887, Me Paul Chevallier.
Gaston Migeon, Manuel d'art musulman, II. les arts plastiques et industriels, Paris, Picard, 1907 (revision of the "Rhodes" attribution).
Related works:
- National Museum of Fine Arts, Stockholm, inv. n°NM 0047/1899.
- British Museum, London, inv. n°G.128
- Musée de la Renaissance, Ecouen, inv. E.Cl.8211.
This dish illustrates Iznik production in the last third of the 16th century, during the reigns of Selim II (1566-1574), Murad III (1574-1595) and Mehmed III (1595-1603), successors to Suleiman the Magnificent. Its floral decoration, derived from the vocabulary of the imperial workshops at Topkapi - where the "four-flower style" had been codified around 1550 - combines naturalism and geometric stylisation in a vivid palette characteristic of this apogee period, when thick tomato red (kızıl) achieved its greatest mastery. These motifs simultaneously inspired ceramics, textiles, illumination and the book arts of the imperial workshops.
The singular interest of this piece also lies in its documented provenance. Baron Jean-Charles Davillier (1823-1883), from a family of industrialists in Rouen, devoted his life to studying and collecting, and published a series of pioneering monographs that are still considered authoritative: Histoire des faïences hispano-moresques à reflets métalliques (1861), Recherches sur l'orfèvrerie en Espagne (1879), Les Origines de la porcelaine en Europe (1882). A member of the Conseil des Musées nationaux, he was a major player in the institutionalisation of the decorative arts in France.
His collection, one of the most extensive of his time, encompassed Hispano-Moresque earthenware, Iznik ceramics, Spanish silver and leatherwork, furniture and book arts from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. Davillier initially bequeathed his collection to French museums in his will - a provision that was contested by his wife. The public sale that followed, held at the Hôtel Drouot in May 1887, attracted the leading collectors and dealers of his time - including Jules Maciet, Albert Kahn and Jacques Doucet - and contributed directly to several French public collections, notably those of the Louvre Museum.
The original label on the reverse bears witness both to this seminal dispersal and to the historiographical moment when these ceramics were still referred to as "Rhodes earthenware" - a name that became established after the Musée de Cluny acquired a group of pieces bought in Lindos in 1883. This erroneous attribution lasted for more than three decades before being corrected at the beginning of the 20th century by the pioneering work of Gaston Migeon...
An important Iznik polychrome pottery dish with tulips and hyacinths, Ottoman Empire, Iznik, c. 1565-1580.
Fritware decorated in underglaze cobalt blue, emerald green, turquoise and raised tomato red; bearing a triangular label monogrammed C.D.A., inscribed " Vente Davillier 1887 " and " Rhodes ". From the collection of Baron Jean-Charles Davillier (1823-1883), Paris, one of the founding figures of French decorative-arts scholarship,
See original version (French)
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