Stonepaste 'Golden Horn' bottle
Ottoman, about AD 1530
From Iznik, modern Turkey
This tall elegant bottle is made from stonepaste, with
underglaze-painted spiral decoration in cobalt blue and turquoise.
The distinctive spiral pattern is known as 'Golden Horn', after
excavations in the 1900s on the southern shore of the Golden Horn
estuary in Istanbul uncovered pieces decorated in this style. The
name has remained, even though it is no longer believed that they
were actually produced at the site. In fact, 'Golden Horn' wares
were made from the 1520s onwards at both Iznik and Kutahya, the
main Ottoman production-centres of luxury ceramics. The fine spiral
coils also occur in Ottoman manuscript illumination, on chancery
documents bearing the sultan's official monogram or
tugra.
Both the form and the spiral pattern of this bottle may derive
from fifteenth-century Islamic metalwork. Timurid metalwork was
brought to the Ottoman treasuries as booty from an important
victory over the Safavids of Iran in 1514, shortly before the
spiral pattern began to appear in Ottoman pottery and
illumination.
N. Atasoy and J. Raby, Iznik: the pottery of Ottoman (London, Alexandria Press, 1989)
J.M. Rogers and R. Ward, Suleyman the Magnificent (London, The British Museum Press, 1988)
J. Carswell, Iznik pottery (London, The British Museum Press, 1998)