DAMASCUS, SYRIA, 15TH CENTURY

Similar Mamluk tiles with depictions of ewers feature in the tomb and mosque of Tawrizi in Damascus. Two others are in the Cairo Museum and one is in Sidon. The ewers seem all to be based on metal prototypes with curving spouts and handles and angular splayed feet. Although the form of the ewers is hard to parallel in the corpus of metalwork ewers of the 15th century, a possible prototype comes in the form of a similar ewer painted on a Nishapur dish of the 11th century in the British Museum (John Carswell, 'Six Tiles' in Islamic Art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1972, p.102). There is also obvious and possible symbolism with ritual ablution (Esin Atil, Renaissance of Islam. Art of the Mamluks, exhibition catalogue, Washington D.C., 1981, p.179).