Safavid Tiles

14

FLOWERS AND LEAVES ON SCROLLING VINES

northern india (muGhal, probably lahore or Kashmir), 17th century

heiGht: 19.2 cm Width: 17.6 cm

A tile in the cuerda seca technique painted in warm, mellow shades of bright apple green, orange, aubergine and purplish blue against a buttery yellow ground, highlighted by white and outlined by the dark manganese brown of the glaze technique. The lyrical design consists of two gently scrolling vines bearing flowers and variegated leaves. The vines wind languidly into the centre of the tile where they do not meet but are joined by a rectangular strapwork cartouche, ornamented by buds along its length and knop finials at the ends. The cartouche introduces an architectural element and a hint of formal order into the floriated garden scene, as if nature is controlled in its abundance by the tending hand of the gardener.

The aubergine vine and calyx on the left of the design terminates with a luxuriant flower with tricoloured petals, saffron on top and aubergine underneath. The petals have a distinctive white margin, which is the white slip with which the earthenware body is covered before the application of other colours. The technique is to apply the coloured glazes just short of the edges of the petals outlined by the cuerda seca, so that a soft marginal halo effect is achieved by the still visible white slip. The robust solidity of the petals evaporates, and in its place lingers the fragile fragrance of soft, gossamer blossoms. The combination of colours and the white outlines contour the petals to give them a concave cup shape. The vine emerges on the lower left from a soft cluster of petals.

The short vine on the right links two serrated split-leaf palmettes. The upper palmette is in apple green while the lower has two bifurcated fronds in saffron rising from a double trefoil calyx of inner saffron and outer aubergine edged with white.

This tile relates closely in design, colours, technique and stylistic treatment of the flowers and leaves, including the distinctive white outline of the petals, to a group of tiles in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London said to come from the tomb of the saint Shah Madani at But Kadal, Zabidal, near Srinagar in Kashmir. The tiles were acquired from Mr Frederick H. Andrews in 1923. He had been living in Srinagar, where he was the Director of the Technical Institute of Kashmir, and wrote to the museum in 1922 offering to sell his collection before he left that year to return to the United Kingdom. He said that the tiles were part of the decoration of the Madani mosque and tomb but the Victoria and Albert Museum believe that though the tiles were installed in a Kashmiri monument, they were probably made in Lahore.

The tiles at the tomb of Shah Madani show similarities of design and colour to the present example. According to Rosemary Crill, the tomb dates from the mid fifteenth century, but it was refurbished by a Mughal nobleman during the reign of Shah Jahan, when tiles in the cuerda seca technique were installed.1 Thirteen tiles from Shah Madani in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum were exhibited and published in Robert Skelton et al, The Indian Heritage: Court Life and Arts under Mughal Rule, 1982, pp. 26-27, no. 5.

A group of thirteen closely related Mughal tiles, also from Shah Madani, forming part of the donation of Jean et Krishnâ Riboud in the Musée Guimet, Paris, is published in Amina Okada, L’Inde des Princes: La donation et Jean et Krishnâ Riboud, 2000, pp. 128-133. The Riboud tiles at the Guimet have designs closely related to the present tile as well as to the group at the Victoria and Albert Museum, with white margins to the flowers and bi-coloured treatment of leaves.

A cuerda seca tile at the British Museum in London is also clearly from the same group as it exemplifies characteristics of the Shah Madani tiles from both the other museum collections. Like our tile, it has a yellow ground and floral motifs with white edges emerging from a spiralling vine (1856,1216.1). This tile was given to the British Museum in 1856 by the artist William Carpenter, who travelled to and lived in India for six or seven years in the 1850s. The British Museum website informs us that this is one of three tiles found in Kashmir by Carpenter and acquired from him as a gift by the museum in 1856. This information corroborates the Kashmiri information provided to the Victoria and Albert Museum by Frederick Andrews and confirms the site of Shah Madani proposed by all the museums.

Reference: 1. See Robert Skelton et al, The Indian Heritage: Court Life and Arts under Mughal Rule, 1982, pp. 26-27, nos. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10, for a discussion of Mughal tiles in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

15

ARABESQUES AND CARNATION

iran (safavid), 17th century

heiGht: 24 cm Width: 24 cm

A tile in the cuerda seca technique with a complex design of interlocking arabesques and a single large floral spray in hues of cobalt blue, black, brown, yellow, turquoise and green against a white ground.

Forming part of what would have been a tile panel with a much larger floral scene, this single tile is filled with rich cobalt blue scrolling tendrils set against a bold yellow ground. Further split-leaf palmettes with white centres combine with the tendrils to collectively form an impressive flowing cartouche. Three small stylised floral motifs pierce the cartouche; two cusped sprays in turquoise and sage green and a single brown leaf to the bottom right corner.

To the upper left of the tile and framing the large curving cartouche, the white ground contains a large single multi-coloured composite carnation, its five cusped petals in cobalt blue with yellow centres surrounding an inner brown rosette with a yellow bud. A single brown leaf emerges above, and below the turquoise calyx connects the spray to an arcing cobalt stem, where a pair of addorsed crocus-like flowers can be seen above two saz leaves. The crisp white ground is rare in Safavid tiles of this era and creates a boldness of colour and design which adds to the charm of the tile. A Safavid tile with part of a similar cartouche can be seen in our Simon Ray Indian & Islamic Works of Art catalogue of November 2013, p. 42, cat. no. 15.

Provenance: Formerly in the collection of Château de Boursault Galerie Kevorkian, Paris, 5 November 2005 European Private Collection

16

PENSIVE COURTIER

iran (safavid), 17th century

heiGht: 25.4 cm Width: 24.2 cm

A tile in the cuerda seca technique with a charming design of a courtier standing under a tree. The courtier wears an elaborate green and white striped turban under a conical yellow and turquoise hat with a lavender pompom to the top. He seems deep in thought, the index fi nger he places on his mouth a conventional gesture of wonder and amazement. His large, expressive eyes and fi nely shaped brows, delicate mouth and chin, are all shaded with painterly refi nement, bringing his fi ne features to vivid life. Curling locks of hair that emerge from under his turban cascade down the nape of his neck and frame his face to either side. His elegant fi ngers are particularly beautiful and are drawn with great poise. The rapt attention with which the courtier ponders his philosophical question or romantic conundrum infuses the image with an enigmatic, lyrical quality.

Arching over the courtier are the turquoise branches of a tree, bearing fl owers with large black and white petals and smaller yellow petals, accompanied by variegated single or bi-coloured leaves in yellow, green and lavender, seen to splendid eff ect against the rich cobalt blue ground. The vigorous thrust of the branches, the sparkling vivacity of the abundant blossoms, and the energy of the twisting and turning leaves, create an explosion of colour and movement above the quiet and pensive courtier. To the lower right edge of the tile can be seen the green pompom of another courtier’s hat.

This superbly refi ned seventeenth century Safavid fi gurative tile may be confi dently attributed to the hand of the great Safavid tile-maker called the “Master of the Faces” by Sophie Makariou, or to his workshop.

Several of this master artist’s superb tiles, all displaying his clear, fi rm signature style, have been sold at Simon Ray and Spink. They constitute the very best group of Safavid tiles, combining steady assured cuerda seca outlines with bold, imaginative compositions and brilliant colours faultlessly applied. As Makariou notes in her description of a tile in the Musée Louvre, Paris, decorated by the “Master of the Faces” with a woman carrying two vases:

“The similarity in the drawing of the faces on such tiles…is indeed very striking, but it is above all the quality of the brushwork and the skill with which the glaze is applied that provoke admiration. The face is always composed in the same way: the lower lip of the mouth is drawn like a ‘cup’, whereas the upper lip consists of two small inverted arcs placed on an arc of a circle; the nose is always drawn in a straight line and rounded off at the end, with the side of the nose indicated by a curl shape. The eyes are shown with large pupils and the eyebrows are not joined; the ear is always depicted in the same way. The hair is not drawn in fi ne strokes but forms a mass of curls painted in a saturated black. The deeply coloured glazes are applied with perfect mastery, leaving few bubbles and no sign of any colour-run”.1

Reference: 1. Istanbul, Isfahan, Delhi: 3 Capitals of Islamic Art, Masterpieces from the Louvre Collection, 2008, p. 248, cat. no. 119. The tile Makariou describes is on long term loan to the Louvre from the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, inv. no. AD 15120.

17

HORSE WITH A CEREMONIAL NECK PLUME

iran (safavid), 17th century

heiGht: 22.5 cm Width: 22.3 cm

A charming tile in the cuerda seca technique depicting the head and bust of a white horse in profile, entering the scene from the right and moving towards the left against a rich cobalt blue ground. The horse has a wispy mane, a large eye drawn with arched brow and glistening pupil, open wide and alert for the hunt, ears pricked up in anticipation of having to break into a gallop for the chase, dark flaring nostrils and an open mouth revealing a protuberant tongue. These elements combine to present to us a living breathing beast, snorting from the exertions of the chase.

The horse is adorned with a green ceremonial plume held by a cusped yellow clasp hanging from a turquoise collar. The bridle is indicated by a yellow noseband and white cheekpiece, and taut black reins encircle the plume, suggesting the guiding hand of a rider whom we cannot see. The lower half of the white horse is painted a plum colour. Laterally bi-coloured horses are often seen in Persian and Indian miniatures; the painted colours indicate that these are splendid horses from royal stables. The rich caparisons of the horse suggest that it is part of a princely hunting expedition. To the left corner of the tile is a slate coloured quiver full of arrows and the green elbow of a hunter taking aim. The rock and shrub landscape traversed by the hunting party is indicated by the spray of polychrome leaves rising from a black and white rock formation to the bottom of the picture and the chinoiserie cloud bands to the upper left corner, which may also be read as mounds of lichen or moss such as those found on mountain slopes.

A related tile with a similarly bold design of a horse and plume was formerly in the Hagop Kevorkian Collection, New York. This also shows a white horse with a ceremonial plume entering from the right. The Kevorkian horse is not accompanied by a quiver full of arrows or the elbow of a hunter but it is even more richly caparisoned, the bridle festooned with rich ornaments, the browband, headstall and noseband all in piquant turquoise, connected by an ochre brown cheekpiece decorated with turquoise and yellow beads. The horse is fitted with a saddle and saddle-cloth fit for a prince, leaving no doubt that like our tile the Kevorkian tile was from a panel depicting a princely hunting scene.

What the prince might have looked like can be seen in a tile in the British Museum, London, where the prince wears a Safavid turban and a tunic fastened with floral buttons like the bridle fittings of the Kevorkian horse. His quiver is turquoise and outlined with a trim of ochre. As he draws the string of his bow, his elbow projects in the manner of the elbow in the present horse tile. Thus the British Museum tile may have also come from a large hunting panel; or alternatively, he may be an archer from a battle-scene, though this is less likely as princely pleasure pursuits were by far the preferred subject of these elegant tiles over the strife of war when used to decorate royal residences and garden pavilions. The British Museum tile is published in Venetia Porter, Islamic Tiles, 1995, pp. 78-79, no, 73. According to Porter, the tile came from a panel of picture tiles probably from a palace, and she notes how the archer’s pose and costume are comparable to contemporary Persian miniatures.

Provenance: Spink and Son, London The Diana Newman Collection, London

Published and Exhibited: The Many Faces of Spink, November 1997, cat. no. 9.

18

CUSPED CARTOUCHE AND ARABESQUES

iran (safavid), 17th century

heiGht: 23.1 cm Width: 24.2 cm

A tile in the cuerda seca technique with a bold design of a large cusped cartouche containing an arabesque of split-leaf palmettes on scrolling vines ornamented with flower-heads and delicate buds. The cusped cartouche has a crisp yellow outline, beautifully drawn with projecting flanges, trefoils and elegant internal cut-outs, resembling cartouche decorations on Safavid arms and armour and metalwork forms. The swirling white arabesques are outlined against the piquant apple green ground by the dark manganese brown of the cuerda seca technique. The centres of the split-leaf palmettes are defined and filled with sharp manganese brown leaf shapes into which white buds sprouting from the vines protrude.

Surrounding the cartouche are floral sprays filling the tile to all sides, having yellow stalks, green leaves and white and black petals. The stylised flowers are highlighted by the rich and vibrant mottled cobalt blue ground.