Together with the hyacinth, the pomegranate became a common decorative motif on later sixteenth-century polychrome tableware made in Ottoman Anatolia, as seen in this Iznik jug. It was likely made and exported to Elizabethan London shortly before 1592, when the fashionable silver-gilt mounts were added to protect its fragile edges and render it even more luxurious.

Jug: Iznik, Turkey, c.1580s –92

Mounts: probably John (Jan) Hoffman (active 1577– after 1599), London, 1592 Fritware painted underglaze, with silver-gilt mounts

Purchased with Leverton Harris Fund, and Albert Leopold Reckitt Bequest funds (M.16-1948)