PROBABLY KHARGIRD, NORTH-EAST IRAN, 1442-3 AD

Tiles such as this are known to have been placed in combination with others on the west iwan in the Ghiyathiyya Madrasa, Khargird (Lentz, Thomas W., and Glenn D. Lowry: Timur and the Princely Vision Persian Art and Culture in the Fifteenth Century, Los Angeles, 1989, p.90 and p.333). One half tile still remains in situ in the entrance hall (Golombek, L and Wilber, D: The Timurid Architecture of Iran and Turan, Princeton, 1988, II, pl.233). This building was finished in 846/1442-43 for Ghiyath al-Din Pir Ahmad Khvafi, one of the viziers of the Timurid Shah Rukh. The building was begun by the architect Qavam al-Din Shirazi who died in 1438, and was then completed by Ghiyath al-Din Shirazi.

Identical tiles can be found in the David Collection (Folsach, Kjeld von.: Art from the World of Islam in the David Collection, Copenhagen, 2001, pl.226, p.174), in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, (Carboni, Stefano and Masuya, Tomoko: Persian Tiles, New York, 1993, no.34, p.39, the note to which discusses further details and examples), and the British Museum (Porter, Venetia: Islamic Tiles, London, 1995, pl.63, p.69), amongst a number of others in public and private collections.