The deeply carved pattern of this tile features four interlaced lattices formed by pairs of undulating vine scrolls that meet at regular intervals along the centerline. The interlacing of the arabesque lattices is complex, but clarity is achieved through different colored glazes and gilding, traces of which appear on the thinner of the two white-glazed lattices and on the inner borders.

The tile matches a border frieze adorning the entrance portal of the tomb of Sultan Mehmed I, in Bursa, where monuments were badly damaged in an 1855 earthquake. It is likely that our tile was removed from the site at that time, before extensive renovations were carried out by a French architect. Dating from the early fifteenth century, the tile predates the period of widespread Chinese influence on Turkish ceramics. In its deep relief and its colors it exhibits similarities to tiles of Timurid Central Asia dating from the late fourteenth century, a resemblance probably explained by the documented presence of Persian tileworkers in Bursa at that time.