The Metal Collection contains a great many intricately crafted vessels and devices owned by Mamluk and Safavid dignitaries or rich Ottoman families. The heavy brass jug, used for washing before feasts, is shaped like the typical Safavid ceramic bottle with an onion-like body and thin neck. Persian craftmanship, whose elegance also impressed the many European travellers visiting the new capital of Isfahan, flourished particularly under Shah Abbās (1588–1629). This tankard with its cylindrical lid is unusual owing to its colourful decoration, based on ceramics from the Ottoman town of Iznik, which in the mid-16th century was known for its floral painting on tilework. In geographic terms, the shape of the tankard probably arrived in Turkey via present-day Transylvania or Hungary. (Barbara Til)