Tile
ca. 1640-50 (made)
| Place of origin |
This tile is one of a group acquired from Mr. Frederick H. Andrews in 1923. He had been living in Srinagar and wrote to the museum in 1922 offering to sell his collection before he left that year to return to the UK. All were acquired in Kashmir, and were stated to have come from the 'tomb of Madani' in Srinagar. The tomb is actually that of Sayyid Muhammad Hussain Madani whose mosque, dated 1444, is next to it. The tiles themselves are later, produced in the reign of Shah Jahan (r. 1628-58), for a ceremonial gateway to the tomb and mosque. The gateway was originally richly embellished with polychrome tiles. Details of what little remained in the early 20th century were recorded in the Annual Report of the Archaeological Survey of India for 1908-1909. Their photographs show tiles set into the walls that are closely similar to this one.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Materials and techniques | Earthenware with a white slip coating, cuerda seca technique |
| Brief description | Architectural tile, part of a floral spray on green ground, earthenware with cuerda seca decoration, Mughal, probably Kashmir, c. 1640-50. |
| Physical description | Part of a tile panel on which the design flowed over the individual tiles. This tile has a green ground with part of a floral spray of orange, purple, white and grey flowers with yellow stems and leaves. |
| Dimensions |
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| Styles | |
| Object history | This is one of a group of 63 tiles acquired in 1923 from Mr Frederick H. Andrews. He had been living in Srinagar where he had been Director of the Technical Institute of Kashmir and wrote to the museum in 1922 offering to sell his collection before he left that year to return to the UK. The tiles were said to have come from the tomb of Madani near But Kadal in Srinagar, Kashmir. The building dates from the mid-fifteenth century, but a gateway was added by order of Shah Jahan, precise date unknown. |
| Subjects depicted | |
| Summary | This tile is one of a group acquired from Mr. Frederick H. Andrews in 1923. He had been living in Srinagar and wrote to the museum in 1922 offering to sell his collection before he left that year to return to the UK. All were acquired in Kashmir, and were stated to have come from the 'tomb of Madani' in Srinagar. The tomb is actually that of Sayyid Muhammad Hussain Madani whose mosque, dated 1444, is next to it. The tiles themselves are later, produced in the reign of Shah Jahan (r. 1628-58), for a ceremonial gateway to the tomb and mosque. The gateway was originally richly embellished with polychrome tiles. Details of what little remained in the early 20th century were recorded in the Annual Report of the Archaeological Survey of India for 1908-1909. Their photographs show tiles set into the walls that are closely similar to this one. |
| Bibliographic reference | Susan Stronge, ‘Tile Revetments in the Reign of Shah Jahan’, in Ebba Koch in collaboration with Ali Anooshahr, eds, The Mughal Empire from Jahangir to Shah Jahan. Art, Architecture, Politics, Law and Literature, Marg Publications, Mumbai 2019, pp 220-245. See Plate 19, p. 237. |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | IM.272-1923 |
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| Record created | June 25, 2009 |
| Record URL |
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