The following excerpt is taken from Mariam Rosser-Owen, Islamic Arts from Spain (London: V&A Publishing, 2010), p. 79-82:
“It was at Toledo during the thirteenth century that Mudejar architecture first crystallised. Toledo was the seat of the Spanish Church and one of the capitals of Castile, whose peripatetic kings spent much time in Seville, after its conquest in 1248, as they did here. Toledo is also the city which has come to be most associated with the idea of convivencia between Iberia’s three faiths, especially during the relatively mulitcultural reign of Alfonso X (r. 1252-84).
Toledo had been absorbed into Castile in 1085, and had therefore had a Mudejar community for about 150 years by Alfonso’s time, but during the early thirteenth century, new Islamic styles began to be imported from the Almohad territory which Castile was then conquering. This was the great century for Toledan Mudejar, seen especially in its churches.
The use of Islamic styles and materials by Toledo’s Jews in the construction of their synagogues is also termed ‘Mudejar’. Toledo’s Jewish community became the most important in Spain, after Jews were attracted in large numbers to Alfonso X’s court.”
It is difficult to determine where this frieze panel originated, and the type of building that it would have adorned, given that the floral patterning – as opposed to Arabic inscriptions denoting Quranic passages – could have been used on a range of architectural structures that were both secular and religious. Nonetheless, this panel belongs to a series of similarly decorated panels that are believed to have come from the same structure, and were all previously from the Hildburgh Collection.