ILKHANID IRAN, LATE 13TH OR EARLY 14TH CENTURY

The Qur'anic inscription on this tile is executed in elegant, cobalt-blue thuluth that stands out in relief against the lustre foliate ground. Its decorative style, imposing calligraphy and size indicate that it would have formed part of an architectural frieze, set above a dado of geometric, star-shaped tiles of the same style. The absence of figural details on our tile, such as birds within the foliage, suggests that it was made for a mosque or religious structure, where the aniconic rule normally applies.

Other tiles in this series, all of which are noted by Stefano Carboni as having inscriptions from the same sura of the Qur'an (Qur'an XXXVI, sura ya sin, as ours), are in various museum collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Österreichischen Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Vienna, and the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence (Stefano Carboni and Tomoko Masuya, Persian Tiles, New York, 1993, no.22, p.27). The Bargello tile has been published since the New York catalogue as being inscribed with Qur'an, sura V, v.55 (Islam, Specchio d'Oriente, exhibition catalogue, Florence, 2002, no.130, p.162).

Sheila Blair suggested that this series was originally made for the South Wall of the Tomb of 'Abd al-Samad in Natanz (Sheila Blair, The Ilkhanid Shrine Complex at Natanz, Cambridge, 1985, p.64).

A tile from the same series was sold in these Rooms, 7 April 2011, lot 55. More recently, a similar tile, but with the inclusion of a turquoise in the background sold in these Rooms, 1 April 2021, lot 1.