ABSTRACT
This chapter examines questions of design and shared motifs across media in late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century Ottoman art, focusing on brass candlesticks (Turkish: şamdan, from Persian shamʿdān 1 ) made under the patronage of Ottoman sultan Bayezid II (r. 1480–1512). These candlesticks tie into a specifically Ottoman artistic repertoire that was in the process of being established across media in the period around 1500. While a unified vocabulary and centralized modes of production in court workshops (some located in Topkapı Palace in Istanbul, others in cities such as Bursa and Iznik) progressively emerged, this process allowed for a degree of experimentation with a range of designs and an openness to other influences such as that of Mamluk metalwork. Trade and exchange of the resulting objects reached across the Mediterranean. These candlesticks, and other objects produced under Ottoman court patronage, were placed in monuments across the empire, spreading imperial aesthetics to buildings created under imperial patronage and presenting them to the broader public in easily accessible buildings such as mosques, hammams, and markets, and not just within the closed premises of rulers’ residences.
