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Writing box
Naksi of Edirne - Enlarge image
Writing box
- Place of origin:
Istanbul, Turkey (possibly, made)
Edirne, Turkey (possibly, made) - Date:
1747 (made)
- Artist/Maker:
Naksi of Edirne (maker)
- Materials and Techniques:
Wood, painted and lacquered
- Museum number:
262-1896
- Gallery location:
In Storage
This box held writing instruments. Its shape had been in use since the 16th century. But this type of lacquer decoration was imported from Iran only in the reign of Sultan Ahmet III (ruled 1703-1730). The motifs are largely European, but Iranian lacquer workers also used roses in this period.
The huge expansion of the Ottoman empire in the 16th century was followed by a period of crisis after 1600. Patronage of the arts did revive after 1650, but on a more modest scale. At first, the revival of 16th-century Ottoman traditions and the adoption of Iranian artistic ideas were the main sources of change. From the 1740s, however, an Ottoman Baroque style developed in which artists applied non-figurative European motifs to Ottoman forms. The Ottoman Baroque flourished until the 1820s, when designers introduced new types of European ornament.
