12 MUQARNAS TILE
WESTERN CENTRAL ASIA (TIMURID), LATE 14TH CENTURY HEIGHT: 30.5 CM WIDTH: 18.5 CM DEPTH: 14 CM
A carved and glazed terracotta muqarnas tile, decorated with a deeply carved symmetrical composition vertically divided into two elongated halves. Each half is of pointed arch-shape and decorated
internally with an ogival lattice composed of five pairs of addorsed split-leaf palmettes that form overlapping ogivals. The stems of the split-leaf palmettes interlace between the ogival forms. The leaves of the split-leaf palmettes face outwards to give a sense of the luxuriant growth and spikiness of form characteristic of the Timurid period. Each of the five ogivals encloses a different stylised floral spray; the floral sprays have varying configurations of three or four rounded and pointed petals. The uppermost ogival is crowned by a trefoil palmette formed by an arabesque interlace. The tile has a curved triangular projection at the top of its elongated rectangular body, which gives it a three-dimensional quality, complemented by the deep carving in relief to the surface. Between the two halves of the tile, just under the point of the arch, is a three-petalled flower on a bifurcated stem.
Carved and glazed terracotta is a highly attractive technique that predates the Timurid conquest, one of the earliest examples being a fragment in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London dated AH 722/1322 AD. Unlike other techniques in the wide range employed by the Timurid tile-makers such as cut-tile mosaic and cuerda seca, carved and glazed terracotta seems only to have been used in the fourteenth century. Similar tiles form part of the muqarnas squinches at the Mausoleum of an Anonymous Woman in the necropolis complex of Shah-e Zende at Samarkand. A corner vault from this building containing a similar tile is illustrated in Jean Soustiel and Yves Porter, with photography by Antoine Lesieur, Tombs of Paradise: The Shah-e Zende in Samarkand and architectural tiles of Central Asia, 2003, p. 87.
Provenance: Private Collection assembled in the 1950s Private Scottish Collection
The tile is covered with a luminous translucent turquoise glaze, offset by a crisp white border. The glaze is thickly applied in an unctuous layer, covering the undulating relief with rich, gleaming colour.
Exhibited and Published: Mikhail Baskhanov, Maria Baskhanova, Pavel Petrov and Nikolaj Serikoff, Arts from the Land of Timur: An Exhibition from a Scottish Private Collection, 8th to 13th January 2013, p. 214, cat. no. 447; catalogue published 2012. In this
Muqarnas is an Arabic term referring to corbels covered in “stalactites”, especially in the vaulted areas of archways or in cupolas. This device, which became widespread in the twelfth century throughout almost the whole of the Islamic world, is one of the most characteristic features of Islamic architecture. This tile would have formed part of a muqarnas structure within and below the spandrels of an arch, in a mausoleum or a mosque. The form can also be seen spread like the leaves of a palm tree as the capital of a round pillar.
catalogue, the authors date the tile to the early rather than late fourteenth century.
Literature: Frédérique Beaupertius-Bressand, L’or Bleu de Samarkand: The Blue Gold of Samarkand, 1997. Gérard Degeorge and Yves Porter, The Art of the Islamic Tile, 2002. Thomas W. Lentz and Glenn D. Lowry, Timur and the Princely Vision: Persian Art and Culture in the Fifteenth Century, 1989. Roland and Sabrina Michaud and Michael Barry, Colour and Symbolism in Islamic Architecture: Eight Centuries of the Tile-Maker’s Art, 1995.