DAMASCUS, SYRIA, CIRCA 1420-50

Details

A MAMLUK HEXAGONAL POTTERY TILE
DAMASCUS, SYRIA, CIRCA 1420-50
The white ground painted in cobalt-blue with three flower heads within scrollwork, repaired
7 ½in. (19cm.) across

Provenance

Lockwood de Forest, late 19th century, and thence by descent to the present owner

Special notice

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Sara Plumbly

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Lot Essay

A tile with similar design of three scrolling flower heads, also designed to be set on its point but with turquoise border is in the Victoria and Albert Museum and attributed to Damascus, circa 1420-50 (inv.no.414-1898). Such motif can originally be traced to Chinese design and also relates to Ottoman Turkish tiles such as those decorating the mosque of Murad II in Edirne, constructed in 1435-46 (John Carswell, 'Six Tiles', in Richard Ettinghausen (ed.), Islamic Art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1972, plate 2, p.111).

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