Page 255 - The Age of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent

drawings in which ferocious dragons emerge from dense foli- bum drawings and manuscript illustrations, appear only on a
age to attack birds. A mid-sixteenth-century drawing, thought few blue-and-turquoise plates. In one of them, a fleet of ships
to have been made either in Tabriz or Istanbul, shows a simi- sails around a large galleon (177). The style of the galleon
lar episode with a snake approaching a bird's nest, set in an with a U-shaped hull, cantilevered fore and aft decks, fully
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idyllic landscape with peris and demons. The theme used rigged masts, and billowing sails recalls those used in the
here is abstracted from saz drawings and rendered in a more paintings of Piri Reis and Nasuh (see 35, 36, 38, and 40).
prosaic manner. Large and small galleys enclose the flagship and advance to-
Growing from the foot of the tree is a bush with several ward the center and the left with their sails catching the
blossoms that recall the type used in one of the sprays deco- wind, creating an energetic and sweeping movement across
rating the cavetto of the grape plate (see 173). The foliated the circular plate. The ships, with carefully defined sails and
rim is embellished with a series of ovals enclosing rounded rigging, float on a sea decorated with dots. Several are cut off
blossoms that resemble those on the plate with vases (see at the edges of the composition, indicating that what is cap-
175). The cavetto is plain except for a thin garland of hatayi tured on the plate is a portion of an even larger design.
blossoms and leaves. The exterior has a floral scroll, following Double blue lines together with a band of small roundels
the blue-and-white style. frame the central composition, which is encircled by a plain
Narrative episodes and figurai representations are rare on white cavetto. A braid decorates the slightly raised rim. The
sixteenth-century iznik wares; these designs, taken from al- exterior shows a floral scroll. The plate, which has no foot

176. Plate with snake, second
quarter sixteenth century
(London, Victoria and Albert
Museum, C.2019-1910)

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