OTTOMAN TURKEY, MID-16TH CENTURY

This tile demonstrates a taste for cobalt-blue ground tiles containing powerful white inscriptions. This combination was popular in some of the most important commissions of the third quarter of the 16th century. A more complete calligraphic Iznik tile, similarly decorated with a white inscription on blue ground recently sold in these Rooms, 25 June 2020, lot 132. Two others sold at Christie’s, Paris, 8-9 June 2016, lots 169 and 170. Another comparable sold in these Rooms, 27 April 2004, lot 337. Like the present tile, that example had a washy cobalt-blue background in which you can almost see brush-strokes. That retained two spandrels and was attributed to circa 1535.