Impressive for its size, the vase is characterised by a globular body resting on a disc foot, a projecting semi-circular double handle and a flared neck with a slightly everted mouth. The exterior is painted with large underglaze blu hatay flowers admist plant shoots framed in an wavy movement enhanced by the delicate bent of the saz leaves. The base and neck are further decorated with thin bands of repeated niches, a decorative motif inspired by Chinese ruyi head crowns. The whole composition is highlighted with touches of bumping, overglaze red. Vases such as this one are usually listed as imitation of the Ottoman Iznik manufacture that interested Europe throughout the 19th century with the affirmation of an Orientalist and/or Turquesque taste in the fictile production of various manufacturing centres, among the most famous being Joseph-Théodore Deck and Samson in France and Cantagalli in Italy. The absence of a specific mark on our vase makes it difficult to propose a certain attribution, although comparative specimens – indeed very similar in size, style and shape- are generally attributed to Cantagalli (see Christie's London, 25 June 2020, lot 10; Christie's London, 22 April 2016, lot 426; Christie's London, 28 October 2020, lot 142; Sotheby's London, 24 October 2018, lot 254), most possibly on the model of the prototype reported and published in T. Deck, La Faience, Paris, 1887, fig. 11, p. 25 with an old attribution to the Greek island of Rhodes, the site of the discovery of an important nucleus of Iznik ceramics in the Four Flowers style and long mistakenly believed to be their place of execution in the last century.

58 cm