OTTOMAN SYRIA OR PALESTINE, MID-16TH CENTURY

This tile belongs to a group produced in Ottoman Jerusalem or Damascus by craftsmen from Istanbul who were working on the refurbishment of the Dome of the Rock under Sultan Süleyman (r.1520-1566). There were at least nine different types of flower in the frieze, painted in a bold manner intended to be read from a distance. E.T. Richmond suggested these tiles were designed for a band above the section of Qur'anic inscription in the upper octagon of the Dome of the Rock (E.T. Richmond, The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, Oxford, 1924). Similar tiles are published in Arthur Millner, Damascus Tiles, London, 2015. A very similar tile was published in Spink, Gopis, Goddesses & Demons: Indian & Islamic Works of Art, exhibition catalogue, London, 2000, p.15, no.6.