Lot Essay
Three Kashan star tiles in the David Collection dated around 1290-91 are decorated in similar fashion to that of our tile although with slightly less refined drawing. On each of these tiles, a bull, two elephants or a horse are painted running to the left, with a finely dotted coat, over a foliated ground emitted from a small pond filling the space in the lower star point (The Legacy of Gengis Khan, exhibition catalogue, New York, 2002, fig.113-5). An early 14th century star-tile in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts depicting a fierce camel with a dotted coat and covered with a saddle blanket decorated with dense whirls, is very similar to the present tile in its style and the very fine quality of manufacture (ibid, fig.117). Both animals are similarly coloured with turquoise and cobalt-blue and the grounds are decorated with identical curves and dots reserved against the lustre ground. A bowl in the Metropolitan Museum is painted with a horse which closely relates to ours, depicted in the same position, with the same rounded paunch, an identical coat with small and larger dots and a similar saddle blanket with tapering extremities and whirling motifs (The Arts of Islam, exhibition catalogue, Berlin, 1981, cat.32). That bowl is attributed to Kashan and datable to the second half of the 13th century or the 14th century. According to the examples mentioned previously, it is possible however to narrow the date to the late 13th century or early 14th century.