A pair of Ottoman carved rosewood and ivory star panels, Turkey, Circa 1500

As with the preceding lot, the fineness of the carving suggests that these plaques were part of a prestigious commission for the Ottoman court in the late fifteenth century. The swirling split-palmette arabesques can be read as a variant of the rumi designs that typify metalwork and court-commissioned Iznik of the reign of Bayezid II (1481-1512), and it is to this period of production that the ivories should also be assigned.

The remarkably clear and coherent repertory of design associated with the end of Mehmet Fatih's and the beginning of Bayezid's reign appears to have been worked out first in the arts of the book, particularly in manuscript illumination and bookbinding. Thus, stylistic parallels for the features mentioned above (the swirling pattern of rumi motifs and the hypotactic centralised composition) appear in bookbinding from as early as the 1460s (see, for instance, Raby, J., Turkish Bookbinding in the Fifteenth Century. The Foundation of an Ottoman Court Style, London, 1993, no.11, p.142) and once established were to have an enduring effect in other media.

The aesthetic possibilities afforded by ivory as a artistic medium are evidenced here in the sensuous texture and tonal richness of the carving. Credit should go to the anonymous master-carver who skilfully adapts and extends the design elements to fill every corner of the irregular field.