Tile, fritware body, painted under the glaze in two shades of blue, Turkey (Iznik), 1530s; from the Çinili Hamam (Tiled Bath-house) in the Zeyrek district of Istanbul.

Triangular tile of fritware (also called stone paste), painted under the glaze in dark blue on a light-blue ground, with details in white. The rotating pattern centres on a six-petal rosette from which three curving stems emerge to fill the corners of the triangle, each bearing a bud of the same "species" and small leaves. Tiles of this type were used to fill the interstices in a revetment of larger hexagonal tiles.

This tile once decorated a bathhouse in the Zeyrek district of Istanbul. The bath was designed by the famous court architect, Sinan (d. 1588), and the tiles that decorate the building relate to those made for the imperial palace in the same period. So extensive was the use of tiling on its walls that the building came to be known as the Çinili Hamam, the Tiled Bathhouse.
Patronage. Since it opened, probably in the 1530s, the bathhouse has been associated with Barbaros Hayreddin Paşa, called Barbarossa in Western sources, who is famous as the Ottoman empire’s greatest naval commander. The admiral, whose original given name was Hıdır, was born on the island of Lesbos about 1478. He began his naval career as a privateer, and in the 1510s he assisted his elder brother Oruç in establishing a “sultanate” with ever-changing borders in what is now Algeria and Tunisia. There they confronted the Spanish, whom Oruç was killed fighting in 1518. Barbarossa succeeded him, ruling under Ottoman suzerainty. In 1534 he swapped his province for command of the Ottoman navy with the title of “captain of the sea” (<i>kapudan-ı deryâ</i>). He held this post until his death in 1546, carrying out a series of successful campaigns against the Spanish and their allies, often in co-operation with the French.
After his arrival in Istanbul in 1534, Barbarossa began to erect religious foundations in the city, of which only his tomb in the Beşiktaş district survives. The admiral acquired the bathhouse in the Zeyrek district so that the profits could support these foundations.
Dispersal. The bathhouse underwent various vicissitudes over its history, including several major fires that destroyed the surrounding district and damaged the building. By the later 19th century, the remaining tilework was in poor condition, and most of the tiles were removed and sold to a dealer called Ludovic Lupti, probably in 1874. Lupti marketed them in Paris. From the 1890s to the 1950s, many examples were acquired by the V&A. At the time the Museum was unaware of their origin or even of the fact that they all came from one building. Excavation and conservation work on the bathhouse in 2010-22 established the connection beyond doubt.
This tile was purchased in November 1892, when the South Kensington Museum bought more than 500 tiles of different types from Mrs Elizabeth Edkins of 12 Charlotte Street, Bristol, for £125.0s.0d. The tiles purchased from Mrs Edkins were accessioned as nos 920 to 1435-1892. The vendor’s late husband, William Edkins, had kept the tiles in drawers in a specially made cabinet, and an accession number was ascribed to each tile on the basis of an inventory that listed them drawer by drawer. The group included 11 tiles now identified as coming from the Çinili Hamam in the Zeyrek district of Istanbul. Seven triangular tiles were kept in drawers 2 and 11 (961-1892 and 1042 to 1043A-1892 respectively), with the six in drawer 11 “forming a hexagon”. Two hexagonal and two rectangular border tiles were kept in drawers 8 and 12 (1019 to 1021-1892, and 1058-1892, respectively). This group now consists of only 10 tiles, as 1042C-1892 was transferred to the Museum’s Circulation Department, which organised travelling exhibitions around Britain, in 1909. It was written off as irretrievably lost in 1952.

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1042A-1892