Tile Panel with Wavy-vine Design

Unknown artist

This panel represents one of the ceramic tile workshops outside Iznik, in the Ottoman province of Syria. It is composed of six tiles, each almost a foot square in size and slightly larger than the standard size used at Iznik. It is designed with a repeating pattern of parallel undulating grapevines ornamented with distinctive dark-blue grape leaves, vine tendrils, and small bunches of grapes. Differences in the individual tiles suggest that the overall design may have been executed freehand over a large field of tiles, rather than each individual tile having been painted from the same paper template. Such variations, almost never found in Iznik production, are a common feature of Damascus tiles in the seventeenth century. Virtually identical tiles are found in the Darwishiyya Mosque in Damascus, erected in 1571.