Tiles of Empire
Two Iznik border tiles with an arabesque of flowerheads and saz leaves, Ottoman Empire, circa 1600.
Iznik tiles from Ottoman Empire Anatolia are one of the glories of Islamic Art. They were commissioned by Sultans throughout the realm, but especially in Istanbul, to decorate mosques and palaces. Prized for their clear glaze, dynamic compositions and vibrant colours, especially cobalt blue, turquoise and a rich, high-relief red underglaze pigment often called ‘sealing-wax red’ they are highly collectable today. Predominant themes are religious texts in decorative calligraphy, floral arabesques, tulips, carnations, roses, Chinese-inspired cloud-scrolls, wide feathery saz leaves and split palmettes.
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| An Iznik border-end tile with saz leaves and cloud-scrolls, circa 1480. |
A Damascus tile with part of a
tulip and vine trellis. |
A Damascus ‘Dome of the Rock’ tile, with additional green. 16th century. |
Inevitably the current fashions in cosmopolitan Constantinople (Istanbul) spread quickly to the provinces and the Syrians began to produce their own versions. The craftsmen in Damascus could not master the distinctive Iznik sealing-wax red so they augmented their designs with aubergine purple, sage green and black.
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| Four Damascus tiles, 16/17th century. |
A Damascus tile, 16th century. |
Four Damascus ‘Dome of the Rock’ tiles, 16th century. |
Large areas could be covered relatively quickly in repeating trellis designs as seen in the tiles above. The design on the single tile in the centre was first created in Iznik tiles for the Sulemaniye Mosque, Constantinople, 1557. Meanwhile, the striking blue and white tiles on the right were first seen on the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, which was tiled on the instructions of the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent around 1545. Soon after this, similar tiles appeared on mosques and private houses in Aleppo and Adana, some with the addition of ‘Damascus’ green with black outlines (top row right) and other variations.
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