Two tiles with painted decoration in purple, yellow, olive-brown, blue and orange-red, Gonzalez Valls, c.1850-51

Two tiles with painted scrollwork decoration incorporating leaves, in purple, yellow, olive-brown, blue and orange-red, on a white ground. The tiles are probably intended to form a border.

The tiles were found in the museum, but are recorded as previously belonging to the collection Illustrating Construction and Building Materials in the South Kensington Museum (see references). The tiles had previously been exhibited in the Great Exhibition, 1851.
It is not known when the tiles were removed from their original frame, nor their exact arrangement within it. However, by comparison with other frames in the series, it is likely that the tiles would have been mounted in a frame of six tiles in a 3x2 formation, with these two tiles at one end, the frame being completed by a block of four tiles of another of the designs unnaccounted for in any of the known frames. This is likely to have been a design for which only four tiles are present in the collection (namely C.74, 75 or 79-1998).

C.93:1-1998