This ornately painted plate from the seventeenth century comes from the famous Ottoman Empire pottery production center in İznik. The figurative depiction of a stylized stag reveals its period. With its long neck, curved body, and graceful legs, the animal is the focus of the paint-ing. It glows in a vibrant shade of green, while the vines and flowers surrounding it are in the typical İznik colors of (cobalt) blue, red, and turquoise green. An ornamental border in the same colors frames the motif.

The underglaze painting and the transparent glaze give the plate its characteristic shine and chromatic effect. This technique, which was developed in İznik as early as the fifteenth centu-ry, enabled pottery manufacturers to achieve bright and long-lasting colors. The production of these high-quality quartz frit wares was encouraged by the Ottoman court to create magnifi-cent objects for palaces, mosques, and wealthy households.

İznik was the most significant center of Ottoman ceramic production and experienced its zen-ith between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. The pieces produced there were com-missioned by the Ottoman court and were used both as luxurious tableware and as tile clad-ding for palaces and mosques. İznik art, called çini (Chinese, Chinese work) in Turkish, was heavily influenced by Chinese porcelain, but developed its own visual language over time. This was characterized above all by floral, geometric, and occasionally figurative motifs. While plant ornamentation dominated, depictions of animals, such as on this plate, remained rare—and make the object particularly interesting.