Plate with floral decoration including carnation, tulip, and cypress

This dish is an example of the polychromatic wares with floral motifs that were widely produced in the town of Iznik and exported in large quantities to Europe in the second half of the sixteenth century. From the 1550s onward, the signature tomato red color and naturalistic motifs such as carnations, tulips, and cypress trees, as seen on this dish, started to emerge in Iznik ceramics and tiles, contributing to the creation of a classical Ottoman aesthetic. This was carried out under Kara Memi, the head of the imperial atelier in Istanbul, and represented a move away from the Persianate taste that permeated diverse Ottoman objects in the first half of the sixteenth century. Motifs borrowed from Chinese porcelains, such as the wave-and-rock border that runs along the rim of this dish, were also widely used in Ottoman pottery, attesting to the intercultural milieu in which Iznik wares were produced.