Made in Iznik, Turkey, about 1575–90, this stonepaste dish is painted in several colors beneath a transparent glaze. Its rim measures 10 3/16 inches (25.9 cm) across, and it is 1 15/16 inches (4.9 cm) high.
The design is a version of chintamani, a Sanskrit term meaning “auspicious jewel.” On ceramics, carpets, and textiles, circles and wavy stripes formed a widespread design that began in Buddhist iconography; the circles and stripes originally stood for auspicious flaming pearls. In the Ottoman setting, their meaning changed through an association with tiger stripes and leopard spots, signs linked with strength and courage.
Four spots in the central field
At the center, paired, narrowing wavy stripes and sets of circular, eye-like spots make a lattice. These are the two elements of the chintamani amulet motif favored by Ottoman artists. Sets of three spots were more usual, but the painter of this dish grouped them in fours. Its vivid color and flawless technique accompany this unusual four-spot version of the design.
The dish’s border follows a pattern ultimately based on a Ming model of foamy water striking a rocky coast. Here, that earlier scheme had become a repeating arrangement of closely packed spirals, interrupted at intervals by S-shaped volutes. By the 1580s, while such borders had become more standardized, the centers of dishes showed a surge of inventive design.
Iznik potters and the free market
In the final quarter of the sixteenth century, Iznik ceramic makers faced inflation known as the “price revolution” and explored new directions in design. Rather than working from new patterns sent by the Istanbul court for tiles in royal buildings, they made costly, individual luxury tableware for local bazaars and for export to European markets.
By the century’s close, dishes like this were being produced in growing quantities for the open market, where prices could better respond to inflation and makers could earn a reasonable return for their work. Tile makers serving the royal court in Istanbul, however, received a fixed rate established no later than 1558, a payment that eventually scarcely met production costs.
A 1585 document sent from Istanbul to an official in Iznik criticized the potters, saying that they “do not work for the State, but rather go away and prepare ceramic tablewares for the pottery merchants.” The dish belongs to the market for which those potters worked.