OTTOMAN TURKEY, CIRCA 1573

Details

TWO IZNIK POLYCHROME POTTERY TILES
OTTOMAN TURKEY, CIRCA 1573
Originally the central two tiles from a lunette panel, the white ground painted in two shades of blue, together with red and green with a bold red cloudband-motif overlaying scrolling tendrils issuing palmettes and saz leaves around a large central palmette, very slight rim chips, one with firing crack
Overall 9 3/8 x 18¾in. (23.6 x 47.5cm.) (2)

Provenance

Auction Nagel, Stuttgart 1992

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium

Lot Essay

These are the two central tiles from one of the lunette tile panels which most authorities agree originally went over the windows of the Piyale Pasha mosque in Istanbul. It was designed by Sinan in 1573 or 1574 for Piyale Pasha, the chief admiral of Sultan Selim II. Complete lunettes are known in a number of major institutions including the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (Atil, Esin: The Age of Sultan Sulayman the Magnificent, Washington D.C., 1987, no.209, p.281), the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum (Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon, 2001, no.33, p.50), the Kunstgewerbemuseum, Cologne (Türkische Kunst und Kultur aus Osmanische Zeit, exhibition catalogue, Frankfurt, 1985, no, p.175), and two in the Louvre (Arts de l'Islam des origines a 1700 dans les collections publiques françaises, Paris, 1971, no.102, p.61).
For two half tiles from the mihrab of the same building in the Theodore Sehmer Collection please see lot 241 in this sale.

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