This type of jug or tankard [maşrapa] was a common Ottoman vessel, typically used for drinking or for pouring drinks. Ceramics like this, made at Iznik, were exported beyond the empire, via Cairo, Budapest and Belgrade, to Europe. This jug and six others eventually made their way to England where they received engraved silver or silver-gilt mounts, namely a functional lid and a fixed base, no doubt to make them more suitable for drinking ale or beer.

Silver marks associate the group with the last two decades of the sixteenth century, when England and Ottoman Turkey began to forge trade links.

Pope Pius V (r. 1566–72) excommunicated the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I (r. 1558–1603) from the Catholic Church in 1570, while the Ottomans were branded heretical and anti-Christian. In initiating correspondence with Sultan Murad III (r. 1574–95), to open political and trade relations, Queen Elizabeth spoke of similarities between Protestantism and Islam.