A monumental Iznik polychrome pottery tankard, Turkey, circa 1575-80

Lot 186. A monumental Iznik polychrome pottery tankard, Turkey, circa 1575-80; 27.5cm. height, 15.2cm. diam. Estimate: £50,000 - £70,000. Courtesy Sotheby's.

fritware cylindrical body painted under the glaze in cobalt blue, green and bole red with black outlines, with curved saz leaves, overlapping roses, florettes and two cypress trees, square-shaped handle.

Note: his is an extremely rare model of an over-sized tankard, most known examples measuring in the region of twenty to twenty-three centimeters. Derived from a European form typically constructed in leather or carved from wood, the tankard form, or hanap, was produced by the Ottomans in both ceramic and metal.

The decoration corresponds to the 'cypress-tree' design, a term used by Nurhan Atasoy and Julian Raby in their comprehensive work on Iznik pottery (Atasoy and Raby 1989, p.235). It was applied on dishes (see ibid. nos.431-4), bottle vases (see British Museum, London, inv. no.A 1437) and more rarely on tankards such as this one (further comparables with cypress trees are in the British Museum, inv. no.G.59 and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, inv. no.C.1-1950).

Tankard (humpen-shaped), Iznik, late 16th century; 24cm. height, 12cm. diam, British Museum, inv. no.G.59. © Trustees of the British Museum

Tankard, Iznik, circa 1565 — circa 1575; 22cm. height, 12,6cm. diam, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, inv. no.C.1-1950. © 2000-2018, The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, UK.