Rare plate with eggplant figure and border - Lot 115

Rare plate with eggplant figure and border Siliceous paste with polychrome decoration under transparent colorless glaze Turkey, Kuthaya, 18th century Diam. 17.5 cm Exceptional ceramic dish decorated with a central figure holding a flowering stem in each hand. Unlike most portrait dishes, the central figure features large eyes and an atypical headdress. Marli with plum background, decorated with six medallions of flowers on a semiset of red florets circled in green. Old restorations, hair and old sales labels. ISLAMIC ART ISLAMIC ART This set of Ottoman ceramics features ceramics from Kutahya. This production center in central Anatolia, southeast of Istanbul, has a long and rich history of exchanges between the Armenian Christian world and the Ottoman Muslim world. These emblematic ceramics of the Ottoman Empire clearly demonstrate the interactions between the region's different communities. The earliest reference to an Armenian church in Kutahya dates back to 1391, and the first dated ceramics to mention Kutahya bear Armenian inscriptions. With its abundant clay resources, Kutahya has been an active ceramics center since antiquity. The use of white, hard siliceous paste to produce thin-walled ceramics developed in Kutahya probably as early as the end of the 15th century. The ensemble assembled here allows us to appreciate the figuratively decorated bowls using a palette in which underglaze lemon yellow is used (initially employed in cuerda secacuerda seca type ceramics). ). These ceramics, some of them of rare form, such as the gourd in our collection, perfectly illustrate the simple, almost candid, yet lively side of these portraits of people in costumes typical of the 18th-century Ottoman world. Also in this collection is an important Iznik plate with two figures, of great rarity and excellent provenance, which has preserved the remains of its gilding.