Iznik Tile

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Ottoman Turkey, c. 1575
Fritware with underglaze decoration
23.5cm high, 24cm wide
Provenance: Spink & Son, London, 3 April 2000. 
Stock no.: A5522

This fritware tile is decorated with white hatayi flowers on a cobalt blue ground. The flowers are connecting by swirling viridian green stems with feathery saz leaves. A large palmette with serrated leaves blooms, at the centre of which is a composite flower of red bole, cobalt blue, and viridian green. To the left of this is an incomplete composite mandorla-shaped flower, filled with white blossoms on a turquoise ground. This tile is a border piece, as the decoration is framed by red bole lines and on one side by an entirely different decorative scheme, featuring blue palms on a white field. 
A number of similar tiles exist in the Louvre, dated to 1550-1600 (accession nos OA 3919/155, OA 3919/161, AD 5995/16). An identical group of tiles is held in the Benaki Museum, Athens (inv. no. 71), dated to c. 1575.<sup>1

1</sup> Carswell, John, and Mina Moraitou. Iznik Ceramics at the Benaki Museum. Athens: Gingko/The Benaki Museum, 2023, pp. 188-199.