During the reign of the Ottoman Sultan Ahmed I (1603-17), there were some three hundred ceramic workshops at Iznik, a city in northwest Anatolia (present-day Turkey). These potteries, which had been established in the fifteenth century primarily to produce brilliantly colored architectural tiles, also made vessels such as this bottle, one of numerous Iznik objects in the Museum's collection. The palette of cobalt blue, green, and bright red came to define Iznik wares. The gray clay of the body of this piece was first covered with a pure white slip, and the geometrically arranged multicolored design was outlined in black. As seen here, the deep red pigment was usually applied thickly, giving it a raised effect, and then the whole piece was covrered with a clear glaze that gave the surface a lustrous, vibrant sheen. The colors and exuberance of their freehand patterns made the Izmik wares populat thorught the Ottoman Empire as well as in Europe, where they were in turn imitated by Italian and English Potters. Felice Fischer, from Philadelphia Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections (1995), p. 67.