OTTOMAN TURKEY, CIRCA 1575

Tiles of this design were popular in Istanbul in the second half of the sixteenth century, serving as eye-catching borders. They were used in the Has Oda (privy Chamber) of Murad III at the Topkapi Saray Palace and in its large domed antechamber which dates to 1578 (J.M. Rogers (ed.), The Topkapi Saray Museum, Architecture, Boston, 1988, pl.64). Tiles of this design are widely dispersed and can be found in museum collections the world over. See for example, tiles in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York or twenty in the Gulbenkian Collection (Türkische Kunst und Kultur aus osmanischer Zeit, exhibition catalogue, Frankfurt, 1985, vol.2, no, p.176). A further tile of this design is in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, bequest of Edwin Binney 3^rd and another is in the David Collection, Copenhagen (Kjeld von Folsach, Art from the World of Islam, Copenhagen, 2001, no.266, p.189). A similar tile was sold in these Rooms as part of the Theodore Sehmer Collection, 27 April 2004, lot 212.