Name of Object:

Bottle

Location:

London, England, United Kingdom

Holding Museum:

The British Museum

About The British Museum, London

Date of Object:

About hegira 936/ AD 1530

Museum Inventory Number:

1878.12-30.519

Material(s) / Technique(s):

Stone-paste with blue and turquoise painting under the glaze.

Dimensions:

Height 43 cm

Period / Dynasty:

Ottoman

Provenance:

Iznik, Turkey.

Description:

A pear-shaped bottle made of stone-paste with a tall elegant neck and flaring mouth. The body of the vessel is covered in a spiral pattern of tightly coiled floral stems, painted in cobalt-blue and turquoise. The same floral scrolls run horizontally around the neck. Placed throughout the design are diamond-shaped medallions. The break between the design on the neck and body may have been intended to make room for a gold mount. The distinctive spiral pattern can also be found on Ottoman manuscript illuminations, particularly as a background for the tughra, the sultan's official monogram. The shape of this bottle echoes a common Venetian glass form. Its exact function is unknown.

View Short Description

An elegant ceramic bottle with blue and turquoise underglaze. While the shape may have derived from Venetian glass, the spiral pattern recalls Italian tondino ceramic dishes. There are also parallels between the tightly coiled floral stems and Ottoman manuscript illumination.

How date and origin were established:

This bottle can be dated to about 936 / 1530 due to its design which is similar to that of a cut-down bottle in the British Museum, with the same spiral pattern, bearing the date 935 (1529).

How Object was obtained:

Part of the John Henderson bequest to the British Museum in 1878.

How provenance was established:

This type of spiral decoration is known as 'Golden Horn' ware, so called because of the number of sherds decorated in this style that were dug up at Sirkeci on the southern shore of the Golden Horn estuary in Istanbul. However, this bottle was probably made in Iznik, the main centre of production for ceramics in Ottoman Turkey in the 10th / 16th century.

Selected bibliography:

Atasoy, N., and Raby, J., Iznik: The Pottery of Ottoman Turkey, London, 1989, no. 147.

Carswell, J., Iznik Pottery, London, 1998, pp.48–51, plate 26.

Rogers, J. M., and Ward, R., Suleyman the Magnificent, London, 1988, p.195, cat. no. 136.

Citation of this web page:

Emily Shovelton "Bottle" in Discover Islamic Art, Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. https://islamicart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;ISL;uk;Mus01;37;en

Prepared by: Emily ShoveltonEmily Shovelton

Emily Shovelton is a historian of Islamic art. She studied history of art at Edinburgh University before completing an MA in Islamic and Indian art at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. Since graduating she has worked on a number of projects at the British Museum. Other recent work includes editing and writing for a digital database of architectural photographs at the British Library. She is currently working on a Ph.D. on “Sultanate Painting in 15th-century India and its relationship to Persian, Mamluk and Indian Painting”, to be completed at SOAS in 2006. A paper on Sultanate painting given at the Conference of European Association of South Asian Archaeologists, held in the British Museum in July 2005, is due to be published next year.

Copyedited by: Mandi GomezMandi Gomez

Amanda Gomez is a freelance copy-editor and proofreader working in London. She studied Art History and Literature at Essex University (1986–89) and received her MA (Area Studies Africa: Art, Literature, African Thought) from SOAS in 1990. She worked as an editorial assistant for the independent publisher Bellew Publishing (1991–94) and studied at Bookhouse and the London College of Printing on day release. She was publications officer at the Museum of London until 2000 and then took a role at Art Books International, where she worked on projects for independent publishers and arts institutions that included MWNF’s English-language editions of the books series Islamic Art in the Mediterranean. She was part of the editorial team for further MWNF iterations: Discover Islamic Art in the Mediterranean Virtual Museum and the illustrated volume Discover Islamic Art in the Mediterranean.

True to its ethos of connecting people through the arts, MWNF has provided Amanda with valuable opportunities for discovery and learning, increased her editorial experience, and connected her with publishers and institutions all over the world. More recently, the projects she has worked on include MWNF’s Sharing History Virtual Museum and Exhibition series, Vitra Design Museum’s Victor Papanek and Objects of Desire, and Haus der Kulturen der Welt’s online publication 2 or 3 Tigers and its volume Race, Nation, Class.

MWNF Working Number: UK1 52

RELATED CONTENT

 Artistic Introduction

 Timeline for this item

Islamic Dynasties / Period

Ottomans


On display in

Discover Islamic Art Exhibition(s)

The Ottomans | The Palace and the Arts

MWNF Galleries

Ceramics

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