This lush motif is plucked from a remarkable Turkish dish (ca. 1575–90) in The Met Museum's Islamic Art collection. Forged in the renowned Iznik kilns—illustrious workshops that produced magnificent ceramic wares for the Ottoman court—the dish is adorned with colorful carnations, tulips, and hyacinths, as well as two small birds subtly perched amid the tangle. A popular Ottoman literary trope, birds and flowers were pervasive decorative elements on 16th- and 17th-century Iznik creations.
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