Shapers of clay, shaped by clay: the living legacy of Iznik ceramics

A little over an hour’s drive from the bustling heart of Istanbul, Iznik rests comfortably at the eastern edge of a 32 km long lake, surrounded by mountains and peaceful beds of reed. 

The pace of life is unhurried, where most make their living from the tranquil pursuit of farming. Small shops dot the quiet streets, settled alongside mostly summer residences.

This city has two claims to fame. First, it is where in 325 CE the First Council of Nicaea (the ancient and Byzantine Greek name for the city) was held. This year marks its 1700th anniversary, and the city awaits in anticipation for the visit of Pope Leo XIV, fulfilling his predecessor’s dying wish. This year is equally significant as the nearly 2000-year-old underwater basilica discovered in 2014 is also expected to be opened for visits.

Second, it is the birthplace of “cini” (pronounced chee-nee), meaning “Chinese work” in Persian, hinting at its early inspirations.

Fuelled by patronage, inspiration went far beyond imitation, however, as this expensive and painstaking process culminated in the creation of surfaces where the distinct Ottoman imagination unfolded.

The Iznik tiles adorned Ottoman mosques, tombs, and palaces, as well as tables, now also found in major museums around the world.

In the later years of the Ottoman Empire imperial patronage was withdrawn, which brought the end of this expensive and painstaking art form in the 17th century. As a result, the masters left Iznik, settling primarily in Kutahya and Canakkale. While their creations are considered inferior to the Iznik tiles, the masters in these new centres developed distinct styles that are now recognised as the unique Kutahya and Canakkale contributions.

After nearly three centuries of being forgotten, revival efforts began in the 1980s thanks to the tireless efforts of UNESCO award-winning masters Sitki Olcar and Mehmet Gursoy, both of whom are Kutahya artists, along with other masters, including Faik Kirimli from Istanbul and Esref Eroglu from Iznik. 

Adil Can Guven, just recently awarded the Living Human Treasures Award by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Esref Eroglu’s three daughters, continuing their father’s legacy, is among the few traditional artists carrying this art form forward. 

The living human treasure of Iznik

On a quiet Sunday morning in Iznik, I walk through the city, its original 5th-century Byzantine layout remarkably intact; two main streets intersecting to form a cross, leading to four gates in the great encircling wall, nearly as long as those of Istanbul, a hint to the city’s historical significance.

Amidst the trees, terracotta domes rise above the skyline, including those of the Ayasofya Mosque. Nearby, the 14th-century Green Mosque stands with its tiled minaret of turquoise and terracotta—an Ottoman jewel. Walking through the city feels like stepping back in time, with ancient monuments abutting every corner. 

“It is impossible for you to dig anything in Iznik and not find something,” says Ihsan Mert, a soft-spoken local whose grandparents first settled in Iznik in 1877.

He recalls his childhood running up and down the Roman theatre, collecting ancient bones and painting them to take to class. The soil itself is alive with history, a reminder of Iznik’s enduring legacy.  

I arrive at Adil Can Guven’s modest workshop and find him painting delicate flowers onto a vase, his calm smile as steady as the brush in his hand.

Around him, the walls are lined with ceramic bowls and tiles, each glowing with centuries of tradition. He rises from behind his desk to greet me and moves on to attentively describe the periods his works draw from, the colours and clay involved in the making processes, as well as the symbolism that comes through the patterns.

Guven has devoted over four decades of his life to this art form. “I have my clay. I have my oven. I have my pottery wheel. This is all I need. I work traditionally,” he shares, as his wife of 42 years, Nursan Hanim, enters the room carrying a tray of tea.

Their partnership is a story in itself. Nursan explains: “We start our day with cini, we end with cini. We share the joys as well as difficulties, and so we are deeply connected in this cause.”

To understand the significance of this art form, one must understand the painstaking process that the making of a single piece of cini entails.

Pottery has long existed in Anatolia, but Iznik’s innovation lay in replacing much of the clay with locally abundant quartz, producing a luminous and durable ceramic unlike any other. 

Each piece comprises four layers: a white clay mixture, carrying up to 85 percent quartz, a thin lining poured on top, also carrying quartz, that allows for a smoother application of the colourful designs, the colours formed by metal oxides, and then finally the colourless, lead glaze known as “sir”, literally meaning secret in Turkish.

The making of the lead oxide glaze itself is once again a process. After being cooked, it becomes glass-like. It then has to be crushed into smaller pieces before being ground up in stone mills. 

Shaped and painted by hand, baked three times and dried naturally throughout, from start to finish, each piece takes up to 70 days to complete.

Within this tradition, art was inseparable from devotion. Tiles lined mosque walls, bowls and pitchers were produced to perform ablution, and lamp holders, often inscribed with Qur’anic verses or adorned with flowing patterns of paradise: tulips, carnations, roses, and streams of turquoise. Each detail was meant to uplift, to remind the faithful of the eternal, and to turn spaces of ritual into spaces of reflection.

Centuries later, these same motifs continue to colour Adil Can Guven’s and the Eroglu sisters’ works.

It began with a lump of clay

Guven’s first encounter with clay began as a boy, when his uncle, Abdurrahman Ozer, whose works now reside in museums and private collections, set a lump of clay before him and his cousins. What began as play soon grew into a lifelong master-apprentice relationship between them. 

Such bonds are central to traditional art. Learning comes not through instruction, but through presence and observation. Once, when the colours on one of his pieces ran together, ruining the intricate design, his uncle did not correct him immediately.

Instead, he simply said, “Watch closely and you will discover and learn.” 

From that experience, Guven discovered that adding a touch of clay to the colours could correct the mistake. “Because I had suffered the consequences, I was eager to find the solution. Once I did, I truly internalised it—I knew I had learned,” he recalls.

His wife, Nursan, reflects on how times have drastically changed. “People no longer have the same kind of curiosity or patience. They want quick answers and faster profits.”  

His master’s dying wish was for a workshop to be set up for Guven.  A week after his death, the husband-and-wife team opened their first workshop on their farm. “It had a roof and that was enough,” they recall with quiet smiles. 

Their sons now work beside them, carrying on the tradition. As children, they would play with animals during the day and then attempt to sculpt them in the workshop.  “They turned out remarkably. We are very thankful,” Guven beams, pride radiating as he speaks of their efforts.

Over his lifetime, Guven has created over 10,000 pieces, each unique, handcrafted, and his freestyle pieces infused with the rhythms of the lake, reeds, and olive groves around him. As time passes, these pieces grow in value, as artworks but also as a living legacy of Iznik ceramics.

His work has caught the eye of prominent Turkish figures like Ilber Ortayli, Ara Guler, and Rahmi Koc. He proudly shows me a piece commissioned as a gift for the Turkish pianist Fazil Say.

For him, Iznik ceramics is both a craft and a philosophy: “You can’t let things sit without purpose. Time always leaves its mark. The clay has a memory,” he says. “Lose focus, and you lose the piece. The clay will not harmonise with you, you must harmonise with the clay.”

Across the city, other masters carry forward Iznik’s revival, notably the daughters of Esref Eroglu, who opened the first workshop in Iznik devoted to this art in 1985. 

Keepers of a family tradition

The Eroglu sisters maintain the family workshop where generations of knowledge, passed down from their parents, continue to flourish, a living testament to the enduring hand-made art of Iznik ceramics.

Mesude Aslihan, the eldest daughter, guides me through a quiet and peaceful garden leading toward their family workshop.

“Our parents Esref and Seyhan Eroglu brought Iznik tile making back to life,” she says with quiet pride. “Thanks to them, many workshops today can make a living from this art. As second-generation artists, we’re honoured to carry the legacy forward.”

Walking through the door, the walls display framed transcriptions of Ottoman court orders concerning tile production, a testament to their father’s pioneering work.  

A large wood-fired kiln dominates one corner, the last of its kind in Iznik, requiring constant care and attention.

The workshop is laden with memories, memories that continue to nurture these women’s spirits. “As soon as I walk through the door, the garden uplifts me,” shares Aslıhan. They reminisce how after dinner, they would lay down in the garden or on the balcony flooring to watch the stars as a family. 

Younger sisters, Emine Selcen, a ceramics engineering graduate, and Sule Cihan, studying arts and culture management, continue to work with the same meticulous hands-on methods as their father.

“I’m intuitive with the oven,” Selcen explains. “Like a chef, I can smell when it’s ready. The metal halo above glows, first like a crescent, then like a sun. That’s when I know it’s ready.”

The sisters’ dedication extends beyond craft. After every kiln firing, they carry on Esref Eroglu’s practice of giving the earnings of one piece as zakat (alms) to the needy, a reflection of their commitment to nurturing their community.

Their mother, Seyhan Eroglu, also infused the workshop with compassion, welcoming people to the rehabilitative nature of this art form. After all, making cini, as in all traditional artforms, consists of a process that requires patience, discipline and an ease with uncertainty. These values, Sule Cihan recalls, were deeply embedded not only in her mother’s mastery of the art, but also in the way she lived her life. 

“I once broke a very large plate my mother had just completed whilst placing it in the oven. She never raised her voice. The sadness in her eyes, however, changed me. To this day, I am especially cautious whilst doing so.”

Aslihan, who graduated from Marmara University Faculty of Fine Arts, also holds a master’s in artistic ceramics, and devotes a lot of her efforts to pattern design. She shares how her father drew from a deep inner world whilst engaging with this art. “Read the Qur’an. There is so much you can find in it for your own cultivation as well as in the creation of your designs,” he would say to her. 

One of their proudest moments was presenting a calligraphic piece to Pope John Paul — the phrase Bismillahirrahmanirrahim (“In the name of God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate”) — artfully shaped like a dove of peace against a turquoise backdrop, the signature colour of Iznik tiles.

This piece, bearing the very words traditionally recited at the beginning of all actions, beautifully embodied the foundation of the Islamic faith while conveying a message of universal peace through the distinctive Iznik style.

The workshop welcomes visitors from around the world and some of their pieces are sold in the Louvre in Paris and Abu Dhabi. Most recently, they have been included in Omer Koc’s exhibition, “Imagine That You Are Not Here,” coming forth with one of their contemporary creations.

“There is no continent our Iznik tiles haven’t reached. Some of our pieces have also been gifted to world leaders,” shares Sule Cihan. “We are honoured to represent both our hometown and our country on the world stage through the timeless beauty of Iznik tiles.”

The Eroglu sisters embody the enduring patience, precision, and reverence required to keep Iznik ceramics alive values Aslihan’s son, Oguz, with his talent and interest in the art, similarly aspires to carry forward.    

Back in his workshop, Guven continues to work long hours despite the calcification in his fingers. Glazing pieces he shaped the night before, painting others as part of a new commission, he moves with the patience and rhythm that decades of cini making have instilled. 

His 7-month-old granddaughter, who naps beside him as he works, has already shown keen interest. “I hand her little pieces of cini,” he says, smiling. “She studies them with such curiosity, touching the surface, bringing them to her mouth, examining the colours.” In her small hands, the tradition continues, curiously, and full of promise.

While proud of his recent Living Human Treasures Award, Guven regards it more as a responsibility than a personal accolade. “This is a true honour. However, I see this more as a role and a responsibility than anything else. Yet, my abilities in this regard are limited,” he reflects.

He eagerly anticipates the day when a dedicated research institute in Iznik opens, part school, part workshop, part store, where students could train for two to four years and specialise in a historical style of their choice.

Leaving his workshop, the serenity of Iznik envelops the senses. Walking along the shores of the lake, once clean enough to brew tea as Ihsan bey recalls, its waters still shimmer, offering locals a daily joy.

A new day breaks and we put our sights on Istanbul. As is custom we leave Iznik with gifts placed in our hands — olives and olive oil from Ihsan bey’s own garden, offered in the spirit of Turkish hospitality, sharing in the abundance of his homeland.