A Fine and Rare Early Ottoman Ivory Plaque, Turkey, circa 1470-1500

the wood frame of stellar form inlaid with five interlocking diamond sections forming a five-pointed star deeply carved with an arabesque of entwined and overlapping split-palmettes and palmettes, wood and ivory filament borders

Evidence of worming on reverse no longer active, wear and losses to extremities, ivory in good condition, as viewed
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This delicately carved ivory plaque would have originally been part of a larger panel from a door, window, cupboard or, most probably, a minbar. The decorative style of the ivory carving is particularly interesting in that it relates to other designs of various forms in the late-15th century during the reign of Sultans Mehmed II (1451-1481) and Bayezid II (1481-1512). Whilst the central multi-petalled knotted rosette is a topos of late Mamluk art, notably Qur'anic illumination, the outer concentric designs, one with horizontal blade motifs and the other with inward-pointing palmette terminals, suggest a slightly later date around 1500.

A selection of specifically-dated objects of the 15th and 16th centuries provide us with a fixed set of points from which we can date this ivory plaque. The outer cover of a bookbinding dedicated to Sultan Mehmed II in the Süleymaniye Library, Istanbul, shares a similar vegetal design (see Raby 1993, p.158-61) and is dated 1474. An ivory carved mirror made for Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent and dated 1543/1544, however, is decorated with a free-flowing foliate motif typical of later Ottoman ornamentation (see Atil 1987, p.139). Given that this plaque shares the ivory-carved foliate designs emanating from a central roundel of the latter, yet also exudes the geometric rigour of the Mamluk period, we can date this piece to the last quarter of the 15th century. A final comparative example is also housed in the Topkapi Saray Museum, a group of carved ivory belt ornaments probably from the reign of Bayezid II (see Roxburgh 2005, p.280, ppl.233-5). 

The fineness of this plaque's carving implies that it was court-produced, and in fact these concentric vegetal designs (which became more asymmetric during the 16th century), can be described as the 'court style' of Ottoman art. This mode of ornamentation relates to the term nakkashane, denoting the men who created the ornamental themes which came to typify Ottoman decorative arts under Süleyman the Magnificent (1520 - 1566). A similar system of patronage also existed at the Timurid court in the early 15th century. In this case, it is likely that this design was reproduced a number of times for a variety of decorative purposes.