A BLUE AND WHITE IZNIK POTTERY TAZZA

The decoration of this fine tazza is associated with ‘the wheatsheaf style’ as described by Nurhan Atasoy and Julian Raby (Atasoy and Raby, 1989, pp.239-240). The style found its inspiration in late 15th and early 16th century Chinese export wares and demonstrates the fascination that the potters and patrons of Iznik had with the Chinese ceramics that were brought in to the empire. It was the most enduring blue-and-white tradition in the second half of the 16th century. A dish with very similar decoration to ours is in the David Collection, catalogued as circa 1575 (Denny, 2004, pp.168-169 and Raby and Atasoy, 1989, pp.240-241, no.447).