Name of Object:

Wall tile

Location:

Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom

Holding Museum:

Burrell Collection, Glasgow Museums

About Burrell Collection, Glasgow Museums, Glasgow

Date of Object:

Hegira 9th century / AD 15th century

Museum Inventory Number:

BC 33.43

Material(s) / Technique(s):

Stone-paste (fritware), painted blue under a transparent glaze.

Dimensions:

Height 21 cm, width 22 cm

Period / Dynasty:

Late Mamluk

Provenance:

Damascus, Syria.

Description:

A square tile decorated with a large, central, symmetrical lotus-rosette design that is made up of several layers of petals and leaves, and which is surrounded by two wheat-stem-shaped branches. The entire design is executed in one colour blue (without shading or black outline) on a white background. The design of this tile shows the extent to which Middle Eastern material culture was influenced by Chinese blue-and-white porcelain ceramics. The genre to which this tile belongs includes the more commonly known blue-and-white hexagonal tiles that are sometimes also found decorated in turquoise and black.

View Short Description

The lotus-rosette design on this Damascus-ware wall tile reveals the extent to which its Chinese counterpart has influenced Islamic Art. A number of examples of this type of blue-and-white tile can still be seen on the walls of Al-Tawrizi Shrine and Mosque, built in Damascus in the AH 830s / AD 1430s.

How date and origin were established:

Stylistic analysis: a number of examples of this type of blue-and-white Damascus ware can be found in European museums, furthermore a number of these tiles survive on the walls of Al-Tawrizi Shrine and Mosque in Damascus, built in the 830s / 1430s.

How Object was obtained:

Part of the collection given to the City of Glasgow by Sir William and Lady Burrell in 1944.

How provenance was established:

A number of these tiles survive on the walls of Al-Tawrizi Shrine and Mosque in Damascus, built in the 830s / 1430s.

Selected bibliography:

Fehervari, G., Ceramics of the Islamic World in the Tareq Rajab Museum, London, 2000.

Lane, A., Later Islamic Pottery: Persia, Syria, Egypt, Turkey, London, 1971.

Citation of this web page:

Noorah Al-Gailani "Wall tile" in Discover Islamic Art, Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. https://islamicart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;ISL;uk;Mus04;47;en

Prepared by: Noorah Al-GailaniNoorah Al-Gailani

Noorah Al-Gailani is Curator for Islamic Civilisations at Glasgow Museums, Scotland. With a BA in Interior Design from the College of Fine Arts, Baghdad University and three years' experience in design and folk art preservation, she moved to the UK in 1992. On completing her MA in Museum Studies at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London in 1994, she worked as Project Officer at the Grange Museum of Community History documenting the presence of Muslim communities in the London Borough of Brent. In 1995 she was Assistant Curator, Ancient Monuments Laboratory, English Heritage, and in 1996 became Curator for John Wesley's House and the Museum of Methodism in London. She co-authored The Islamic Year: Surahs, Stories and Celebrations (Stroud: Hawthorn Press, 2002) for non-Muslim children. Since 2003 she has been based at The Burrell Collection in Glasgow, working across the city's museums to interpret Islamic art and culture, ancient and modern, through research, exhibitions and educational activities.

Copyedited by: Mandi GomezMandi Gomez

Amanda Gomez is a freelance copy-editor and proofreader working in London. She studied Art History and Literature at Essex University (1986–89) and received her MA (Area Studies Africa: Art, Literature, African Thought) from SOAS in 1990. She worked as an editorial assistant for the independent publisher Bellew Publishing (1991–94) and studied at Bookhouse and the London College of Printing on day release. She was publications officer at the Museum of London until 2000 and then took a role at Art Books International, where she worked on projects for independent publishers and arts institutions that included MWNF’s English-language editions of the books series Islamic Art in the Mediterranean. She was part of the editorial team for further MWNF iterations: Discover Islamic Art in the Mediterranean Virtual Museum and the illustrated volume Discover Islamic Art in the Mediterranean.

True to its ethos of connecting people through the arts, MWNF has provided Amanda with valuable opportunities for discovery and learning, increased her editorial experience, and connected her with publishers and institutions all over the world. More recently, the projects she has worked on include MWNF’s Sharing History Virtual Museum and Exhibition series, Vitra Design Museum’s Victor Papanek and Objects of Desire, and Haus der Kulturen der Welt’s online publication 2 or 3 Tigers and its volume Race, Nation, Class.

MWNF Working Number: UK4 60

RELATED CONTENT

 Artistic Introduction

 Timeline for this item

Islamic Dynasties / Period

Mamluks


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Ceramics

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