A DAMASCUS TILE PANEL

An identical tile panel is in the Robert Mouawad Private Museum in Beirut, formerly the house of Henri Pharaon (John Carswell, (ed.), The Future of the Past, the Robert Mouawad Private Museum, Beirut, u.d. (2005), no. 103, pp. 268-9). Tiles from exactly this cartoon can also be found in the Salimiye madrasa in Damascus dating from 1566. They however use the full Damascus palette including apple-green. The palette seen here, including the use of designs filled as well as outlined in black, is exactly that of the mosque lamp made in AH 956/1549 AD for the Dome of the Rock that is now in the British Museum (Yanni Petsopoulos, Tulips, Arabesques and Turbans, exhibition catalogue, London, 1982, no. 87, p. 93 and pl. p. 107 amongst other publications).