Dish Decorated With a European Ship

ca. 1625-1650

This image of what is probably an English warship from the Elizabethan period on a dish produced in Iznik in Turkey demonstrates the extent of the trade and reciprocal familiarity between the seafaring peoples of the Ottoman world and Europe. The specimen belongs to a long series in fashion during the 17th century, in which the decorative motifs used by the factories of Iznik were ships of all kinds and provenances that sailed the Mediterranean to the ports of Anatolia.

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