This is one of the first pieces of fritware to be made under the Ottoman sultans. The jar is one of a group with decoration painted under the glaze in blue and white. Experts believe that this group is probably the first with this type of decoration made in northwest Turkey in the reign of Sultan Mehmed II (1451-1481). It stands at the beginning of the great tradition of ceramic production associated with the small town of Iznik.
The decoration of these early pieces is in the style developed from the 1460s at the court of Mehmed II. Ceramic experts used to call it the Abraham of Kutahya style. More recently it has been renamed the Baba Nakkash style. This is because it resembles designs on paper thought to be by Baba Nakkash. He seems to have been head of the palace scriptorium (a room set aside for writing) in the relevant period.
The decoration of the main body of the jar is divided into three horizontal bands. The wider central band has a double scrollwork pattern reserved (showing through in the body colour) on a cobalt-blue ground. The bands at the shoulder and above the foot have peony scrolls in blue on white. Two plain white torus mouldings divide the narrow bands of decoration on the neck and the foot. These mouldings are one of several features that also appear in Ottoman work in precious metal. However, the main body is shaped like a Chinese porcelain jar, and the blue-and-white colour scheme also originated in China.