An underglaze-painted rectangular calligraphic tile with two stylised flowers appearing in the background, inscribed in elegant white thuluth script reserved against a vibrant cobalt blue ground, with emerald green and sealing wax red details.

The dark cobalt blue has been thickly applied and the artist’s brushstrokes can be clearly seen as the crisp white calligraphy punctuates the ground. Part of a stylised rosette flower with white petals surrounding smaller emerald inner petals and a central bud with raised sealing wax red detail can be seen to the bottom edge. To the top of the tile, a further stylised spray emerges from a horizontal section of script, the flower painted with five white petals containing a central red bud and further smaller red splashes. A single emerald green leaf appears from above the flowers whilst below, the white stem and a further leaf rises from the text.

The tile originally would have formed part of a calligraphic frieze. The inscription is a fragment of a verse in Ottoman Turkish; a suggested reading is:

“…under its roof, this sphere(?)…”

The references to the roof and sphere, and the stone, ruby and rose garden, mentioned in the inscription of the accompanying calligraphic tile in catalogue no. 15, are entirely suitable for an architectural inscription.

A complete panel of similar calligraphic tiles including the border can be seen in situ in the Atik Valide Mosque in Istanbul and a further example is published in Hülya Bilgi, Dance of Fire: Iznik Tiles and Ceramics in the Sadberk Hanim Museum and Ömer M. Koç Collections, 2009, pp. 192-193, cat, no. 97. For a calligraphic panel with similar stylised floral motifs, see Ahmet Ertuğ and Walter Denny, Gardens of Paradise: 16th Century Turkish Ceramic Tile Decoration, 1998, p. 94.

Provenance:

Mrs Zeïneb Lévy-Despas
Collection Zeïneb et Jean-Pierre Marcie-Rivière

Acknowledgement:

We would like to thank Will Kwiatkowski for his expert advice and kind reading of the inscription.