Lot Essay
While Syrian blue and white tiles are known in many collections and buildings and have been well published (see note to lot 228), lustre hexagonal tiles are very rare. This group uses a variety of designs, most of which are closely related to some found in the blue and white group. Like the examples in the tomb and mosque of Ghars al-Din al-Khalil al-Tawrizi of 1430, some of these have the design starting from a point while others begin in the centre of a flat side, leaving the question open on the original orientation (Carswell, J.: 'Six Tiles', in Ettinghausen, R. (ed.): Islamic Art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1972, pp.99-124).
The light blue splashes are an interesting feature and suggest that these tiles may originally have been intended for a different design. Although the light blue is hardly visible, a close inspection shows it to be fairly symmetrically distributed on those tiles which are affected, with either three, four or five spots. One tile has a complete blue circle. This could indicate that they misfired with the blue and were thus unusable for their original purpose. The lustre later firing would not have affected the blue colour.
The light blue splashes are an interesting feature and suggest that these tiles may originally have been intended for a different design. Although the light blue is hardly visible, a close inspection shows it to be fairly symmetrically distributed on those tiles which are affected, with either three, four or five spots. One tile has a complete blue circle. This could indicate that they misfired with the blue and were thus unusable for their original purpose. The lustre later firing would not have affected the blue colour.