Image of Gallery in South Kensington
On display at V&A South Kensington
Ceramics, Room 137, The Curtain Foundation Gallery

Tile

ca. 1420-1450 (made)
Artist/Maker
Unknown
Place of origin
Damascus (made)

Tile, hexagonal in shape, with a fritware body painted in blue, black and turquoise on a white ground under a clear glaze. The main motif is a lidded vessel with two handles (previously identified as a vase), painted blue, with palmette motifs reserved in white and textured with blue dots. The surrounding field is filled with lotus scrolls painted in blue, and is framed by two black lines. The band around the edge of the tile is painted turquoise.


Object details

Category
Ceramics
Object type
Tile
Materials and techniques
Fritware with polychrome underglaze painting
Fritware
Glaze
Painting
Glazed
Brief description
Tile, hexagonal in shape, fritware body, decoration painted under a clear glaze, Damascus, ca. 1420-1450.
Physical description
Tile, hexagonal in shape, with a fritware body painted in blue, black and turquoise on a white ground under a clear glaze. The main motif is a lidded vessel with two handles (previously identified as a vase), painted blue, with palmette motifs reserved in white and textured with blue dots. The surrounding field is filled with lotus scrolls painted in blue, and is framed by two black lines. The band around the edge of the tile is painted turquoise.
Dimensions
  • Width: 18.4cm
Style
Mamluk
Subjects depicted
Dots
Trefoils
Scale Pattern
Vase
Bibliographic references
  • Carswell, John. Some fifteenth century hexagonal tiles from the Far East. London : Victoria & Albert Museum Yearbook, No. 3, 1972, pp. 59-75.
  • Carswell, John. Six Tiles. In: Richard Ettinghausen, ed. Islamic Art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York : Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1972. pp. 99-124.
  • Arthur Lane, A Guide to the Collection of Tiles, Victoria and Albert Museum, second edition, London, 1960, pp.15-16: "The Syrian potters also made "blue-and-white" tiles. Many are still in situ at the Turbeh of al-Tawrizi in Damascus, built in 1423. They are hexagonal and are set point-to-point, with plain turquoise triangular tiles filling the gaps between them. The Museum has a whole series of similar hexagonal tiles of about the same date which are said to have been in the Great Mosque at Damascus before it was damaged by fire in 1893 (Nos. 407 etc., 422 etc., 431 etc.-1898; 295-1900, Pl. 12). The designs fall into three groups, of which the first, freely painted in outline, includes vases; birds; plant-forms springing from the lowest corner of the tile and bearing large pointed fruit; notched leaves against a background of tiny spirals; and coiled or wavy stems with rosettes and pointed palmettes, obviously derived from Chinese "blue-and-white" porcelain (Pl. 12a, c, d to i). A narrow turquoise border is edged with brown-black lines."
Collection
Middle East Section
Accession number
422-1898

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Record createdMarch 16, 2009
Record URL
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O199659/tile-unknown/
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