Iznik Pottery: The Flowers of the Ottoman Sacred Imagination
The town of Iznik (ancient Nicaea, site of the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE) became, in the 15th and 16th centuries, the center of the most technically accomplished and visually extraordinary ceramic tradition in the history of Islam — perhaps in the history of world pottery. Iznik potters, working under Ottoman imperial patronage, developed a unique formula for quartz-based stonepaste that produced a brilliant white ground of exceptional density and purity, onto which they painted with cobalt blue, turquoise, sage green, black, and the distinctive Iznik red (a vivid tomato red achieved by applying a thick slip of Armenian bole that stands slightly proud of the surface) — all under a brilliantly clear lead glaze. The subjects were drawn from the Ottoman court's garden culture: tulips, carnations, hyacinths, cypress trees, grape vines, pomegranates — the flowers of the Islamic paradise garden (jannat) depicted with a naturalism that anticipates European botanical illustration by seve...