he ceramics of Iznik were among the finest work of art produced in the Ottoman Empire. The technical quality of this pottery and the beauty and immediacy of its designs have long made it one of the most popular art forms from the Islamic world.

The Iznik ceramic industry was established and patronized by the Court of the Sultans, and its successive stylistic phases reflect the major changes in Ottoman taste from the late 15th to the 17th century. Starting with the elaborate blue-and-white arabesque style of the late 15th century and gradually developing into the bold and vibrant naturalism of the second half of the 16th century, the decorative repertoire of the potters included a phase when Iznik pottery was influenced by Chinese Yuan and Ming blue-and-white porcelain, of which the Ottoman Sultans have bequeathed us an outstanding collection.

Before tile production at Iznik began in earnest in the 16th century, the ceramic revetments used to adorn buildings in Bursa and Edirne, the first capitals of the Ottoman state, and later in Istanbul are thought to have been made by peripatetic master potters of various origins who worked near the construction site. These tiles were made of a hard white paste using advanced pottery techniques and were decorated with a rich variety of designs.

As the 15th century drew to a close, the pottery industry at Iznik, than a small town of only 400 households, entered a new phase which saw the production of a white-bodied ware decorated in blue on a white background. These developments can probably be linked, on the one hand, to the settlement in the town of master potters who developed more advanced techniques than those previously in use there and, on the other, to the establishment of links with the Palace design atelier established in Istanbul under Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror.

Although natural calamity and man-made hazard are the primary reasons why so little Iznik pottery has come down to our day in Turkey, two other causes must also be noted: the first is natural wastage and the second is the admiration for European taste felt by the Ottomans in the 18th century and even more in the 19th. The latter led to the growing use of European porcelain and whatever old Iznik pottery had survived the fires and earthquakes fell out of favour and was thrown away or sold off, victim to the fashion for foreign wares.