A rare Iznik blue and white pottery chinoiserie tazza, Circa 1560-70

This rare iznik dish is of deep rounded form with sloping bracketed rim, resting on a raised everted foot, decorated in greyish-blue under a transparent glaze with a central bracketed medallion containing lotus blossoms issuing leaves and tendrils encircling each other, the cavetto and rim with a repetition of this design, the exterior with similar interspersed motifs.

This dish illustrates the fascination with early Chinese blue and white porcelains among the potters and patrons of Iznik. The origin of the design is an early fifteenth-century Ming dish such as the one in the collection of the Topkapi Palace (Krahl 1985, p.513, no.602). The flowers are different but of a kind found on other early fifteenth-century Chinese dishes (ibid., no.603).

A further element drawn from Chinese blue and white porcelain is the grey-blue colour of the design. This appeared on Chinese pieces at times when they were forced to use local cobalt rather than imported sources. This did not happen during the early fifteenth century which was a period notable for the consistently rich blue of its porcelain. Hence, the decoration draws on sources of different periods and one may assume that this grey-blue was adopted to achieve a particular aesthetic.