Selim I, the Ottoman Sultan from 1512 to 1520 AD, attacked the Safavid Empire capturing its Capital Tabriz and starting some 200 years of warfare. This is why the Savafids built a new Capital at Isfahan that was easier to protect. Meanwhile, Selim mounted an expedition that conquered the Mamluks in Egypt. He was followed by “Suleiman the Magnificent” (1520-1566 AD) who conquered South East Europe almost reaching Vienna. At the end of his reign the Ottoman Empire was vast, covering Anatolia, Iraq, part of Iran, Syria, Egypt, much of Saudi Arabia, Hungary, Ukraine and Greece.

Konya, glazed tiles first half of 13^th century AD
- source museum Istanbul

Green Mosque, Bursa, wall tiles

The first “Turkish”, that is Ottoman, pottery of note were bricks and tiles covered in coloured glazes used in 13^thcentury buildings, mainly mosques. There are examples in Konya dated to 1243 AD. They were clearly Persian inspired, using Persian potters. The tiles used on the Green Mosque and Tower at Brusa (present Bursa), a capital of the Ottomans, included Chinese lotus decoration, and they were signed by Persian workmen.

Beautiful Isnik charger 1400 AD - source
museum Istanbul

Other pottery seems to have been neglected until the late 15^th century, when Iznik became the chief centre for Turkish pottery. Between 1400 and 1700 AD, contemporary with the Persian Kubachi ware, Iznik pottery was decorated under a thin clear siliceous glaze initially on a soft and sandy, greyish-white body covered with a white, or occasionally red or blue slip. The potters were first influenced by Chinese Ming blue-and-white ware, with some Persian design content, notably in the intricacy of decoration and shapes based on metal ware. Beautiful examples of a blue-and-white Iznik chargers of this date exist and examples can be found in museums. At the start of the 16^thcentury the body was replaced by a fritware containing 80% silica (quartz), 10% glass frit and 10% white clay. After 1525 AD they also copied Ming blue-and-white ware directly, stroke for stroke, but misinterpreted some designs so that the Ming “rock of ages’ pattern resembled a fossil ammonite. Later they specialised in flat dishes decorated with western floral depictions of tulips, lotus blossoms and even roses. The flowers were often stylised to abstraction, probably to comply with the Qur’an’s ban on painting living things. Pottery was initially painted in cobalt blue, then turquoise and purple and finally a rather thickly applied red, rather like sealing wax, under and over the glaze.

Damascus floral tiles 16-17 century AD
- Image courtesy of the Potteries Museum
& Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent

Topkapi Palace wall tiles, green panel
1640 AD, blue panel 1529 AD

Revan Kiosk

The polychrome opaque red and luminous blue decorated wares were probably the best of their type, but other colours used were green, turquoise and black outliner. Other shapes were jugs, footed dishes and bowls, with mosque lamps a rarity. They also devised a pattern of overlapping “scales” that passed to Italian Majolica, and could well have inspired the Worcester blue scale pattern. Tiles were made in large numbers for the new mosques in Constantinople built by Suleiman the Magnificent, and again potters probably came from Iran (Tabriz). The colours included brilliant copper green and red on a glossy white ground. The tiles made up repeating patterns or pictures with elaborate borders.

By 1600 AD the Ottoman Empire was at its height, and it continued for over three centuries and was finally broken up after the First World War. In 1922 AD Ataturk declared Turkey a republic.