Iznik Tankard (Hanap)

A cylindrical Iznik tankard or hanap made from polychrome glazed fritware. It has an applied angular handle, painted with short horizontal strokes of black on a white ground and on the sides, prunus blossoms on a cobalt blue ground. The body is painted with long, upright cobalt blue hyacinths and bole red roses on a white slip ground. The upper and lower borders comprise a turquoise band decorated with an undulating split palmette vine in black. The use of black outlines and newer colours such as turquoise and red bole, alongside more traditional cobalt blue and olive green, is indicative of a transitional period piece, dating from the second half of the 16th century.¹

The cylindrical tankard or hanap emerged in the second half of the 16th century. It likely derives from Northern European prototypes like the humpen or stein, or wooden tankards made in Andritsaina, Greece.² The unusual horizontal lines on the handle may be attempts to copy stitching from leather prototypes.³ The Iznik hanap was popular in the European market, as testified by examples with contemporaneous European mounts.⁴

A tankard of the same form in the Sadberk Hanim Museum, Istanbul (no. SHM 3892 – HK.829) is dated to c. 1560-1580.⁵ It is decorated with elongated hyacinths and carnations and bordered with bands of turquoise painted with thin, black spirals. A tankard in the Calouste Gulbenkian Collection, Lisbon (no. 777), dated to c. 1575, has identical upper and lower borders, of split palmette vines on a turquoise band. Another in the same collection (no. 820), dated to c. 1560, has a different colour scheme, but is decorated with similar upright hyacinths and split palmette borders.⁶

[1] Bilgi, Hulya. Dance of Fire: Iznik Tiles and Ceramics in the Sadberk Hanım Museum and Ömer M. Koç Collections. Istanbul: Sadberk Hanim Museum, 2009. p. 30.
[2] Lane, Arthur. ‘The Ottoman Pottery of Isnik’, Ars Orientalis 2 (1957). pp. 247-281; p. 261.
[3] Carswell, John, and Mina Moraitou. Iznik Ceramics at the Benaki Museum. Athens: Gingko/The Benaki Museum, 2023. p. 75.
[4] See Denny, Walter B. Iznik: The Artistry of Ottoman Ceramics. London: Thames & Hudson, 2004. p. 170. 
[5] See Bilgi. op. cit. p. 250, cat. 137. 
[6] See Ribeiro, Maria Queiroz. Iznik Pottery and Tiles in the Calouste Gulbenkian Collection. Lisbon: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 2009. pp. 48, 98. Cat. 20, 57.