A group of twelve Kashan pottery lustre and monochrome Tiles Persia, 12th/ 13th Century
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Find your local specialistA group of twelve Kashan pottery lustre and monochrome Tiles
Persia, 12th/ 13th Century
Persia, 12th/ 13th Century
21 cm. diam.
Footnotes
The inscriptions on the lustre tiles read as follows: Tile with sphinx, Qur'an, surah al-Falaq (CX111) and surah al-Nas (CXIV); tile with centre divided into four, Qur'an, surah al-Lahab (CXI), 1-4; tile with lobed arches, the first four couplets of Firdausi's Shahnama followed by another couplet in praise of God; the tile with flowers and foliage, verses from Firdausi's Shahnama and "the date......".
It is said that star tiles alternating with cross tiles of either lustre or monochrome glaze decoration, were used in dado panels or to cover tomb structures (see Oliver Watson, Persian Lustre Ware, London, 1985, p. 122).
These star and cross tiles are characteristic of ones that are known to have decorated the inside walls of the dado around the tomb of Imamzada Yahya in Veramin, south-east of Tehran, dated between October 1261 and January 1263 (see Arts of Islam, Exhibition Catalogue, Hayward Gallery, London, 1976, no. 379). A panel of star tiles resembling this group, dated AH 738/ AD 1337, comes from the Imamzada Ali ibn Ja'far, in Qumm (see, Oliver Watson, op. cit.).