Name of Object:

Dish

Location:

Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom

Holding Museum:

The Burrell Collection, Glasgow Museums

About The Burrell Collection, Glasgow Museums, Glasgow

Date of Object:

Hegira last quarter of the 10th century / AD around 1575–1580

Museum Inventory Number:

BC 41.42

Material(s) / Technique(s):

Stone-paste (fritware), painted under a transparent glaze.

Dimensions:

Diameter 34 cm

Period / Dynasty:

Ottoman

Provenance:

Iznik, Turkey.

Description:

An Iznik ceramic dish decorated with a cruciform arrangement of tomato-red, blue and green floral clusters surrounding a central rosette and alternating with brackets of arabesque decoration. The outer rim of the dish is decorated with a Chinese-style wave-and-rock border. The brilliant tomato- red used on this dish (painted under the glaze) has a distinctive body and rises slightly once fired; this gives Iznik dishes like this one a distinctive texture. This dish belongs to the third phase of Iznik pottery manufacture, which lasted from AH 956 to 1111 / AD 1550 to 1700 and which saw the development of new techniques, such as underglaze painting, and a greater variety of colours, such as the brilliant tomato-red, known also as Armenian bole.

Iznik ware of this period became so very popular in several regions of the Ottoman Empire and some parts of Europe, that for a long time it was mistakenly attributed by European scholars to potters on the Island of Rhodes. This was mainly due to the extensive use of Iznik dishes in decorating the walls of Rhodian homes, thus giving the false impression that the ceramics had been made locally.

This Iznik ceramic dish with its brilliant underglaze red colour belongs to the third period of Iznik pottery production, which was very popular in several regions of the Ottoman Empire and parts of Europe, including the island of Rhodes where such dishes were used to decorated domestic walls.

How date and origin were established:

Stylistic analysis: the distinctive texture of the brilliant underglaze bole-red indicates that this dish was definitely produced by an Iznik workshop in the third period of Iznik pottery manufacture, which lasted from AH 956 to 1111 / AD 1550 to 1700. The style and layout of the floral decoration is also typically Iznik.

How Object was obtained:

Part of the collection given to the City of Glasgow by Sir William and Lady Burrell in 1944.

How provenance was established:

The distinctive texture of the brilliant underglaze bole-red indicates that this dish was definitely produced by an Iznik workshop; the style and layout of the floral decoration is also typically Iznik.

Selected bibliography:

Atasoy, N. and Raby, J., Iznik: The Pottery of Ottoman Turkey, London, 1994.

Carswell, J., Iznik Pottery, London, 1998.

Lane, A., Later Islamic Pottery: Persia, Syria, Egypt, Turkey, London, 1971.

Citation of this web page:

Noorah Al-Gailani "Dish" in Discover Islamic Art, Museum With No Frontiers, 2025.
https://islamicart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;ISL;uk;Mus04;29;en

Prepared by: Noorah Al-GailaniNoorah Al-Gailani

Noorah Al-Gailani is Curator for Islamic Civilisations at Glasgow Museums, Scotland. With a BA in Interior Design from the College of Fine Arts, Baghdad University and three years' experience in design and folk art preservation, she moved to the UK in 1992. On completing her MA in Museum Studies at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London in 1994, she worked as Project Officer at the Grange Museum of Community History documenting the presence of Muslim communities in the London Borough of Brent. In 1995 she was Assistant Curator, Ancient Monuments Laboratory, English Heritage, and in 1996 became Curator for John Wesley's House and the Museum of Methodism in London. She co-authored The Islamic Year: Surahs, Stories and Celebrations (Stroud: Hawthorn Press, 2002) for non-Muslim children. Since 2003 she has been based at The Burrell Collection in Glasgow, working across the city's museums to interpret Islamic art and culture, ancient and modern, through research, exhibitions and educational activities.
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: UK4 33