Tile

Elegant calligraphy in thuluth script graces the central band of this large, intricately decorated tile. Executed in low relief, the cobalt-blue glazed inscription is set against a field of scrolling vines, where tiny birds perch among leafy foliage—some alighting upon the letters themselves.

The theme of birds in vegetation is continued in the smaller band above, which contains a series of confronted birds between small plantings.[3] Appreciable both from a distance and upon closer examination, the bold, sweeping lines of calligraphy stand in sharp contrast to the detailed rendering of the inhabited background, finished in a gold luster glaze with touches of turquoise. This tile was probably one in a series that formed a glittering inscriptional frieze encircling the interior walls of a fourteenth-century tomb pavilion located in Natanz, Iran.[4] The frieze sat close to eye level, crowning a dado of equally opulent star- and cross-shaped tiles.[5] This tomb pavilion was erected in honor of Nur al- Din ‘Abd al-Samad, a shaikh of the Suhrawardiyya sufi order. Shortly after ‘Abd al-Samad’s death in about 1300 construction began on a tomb complex in his honor in Natanz, a city located a few miles north of Isfahan.[6] The complex soon became a shrine that pilgrims visited to pay homage to the shaikh.[7]

Upon entering the tomb, a visitor would have encountered walls covered with carved stuccowork and luster-painted tiles, including this piece. Other similarly inscribed and decorated tiles, also attributed to ‘Abd al-Samad’s tomb pavilion, contain Qur’anic verses from Sura 76, passages that describe the rewards awaiting the worthy in Paradise.[8] This tile, however, contains an Arabic inscription with the date A.H. 707, said to mark the year in which work was completed on the tomb.

Denise-Marie Teece in [Ekhtiar, Soucek, Canby, and Haidar 2011]

Footnotes:

3. The heads of the birds on the Metropolitan’s tile, as well as those on many other tiles also said to be from the shrine, appear to have been intentionally defaced, likely due to iconoclastic sentiment.

4. For comparable pieces, see Ettinghausen, Richard. "Dated Faience." In Pope, A. U., and Ackerman, eds. A Survey of Persian Art Prehistoric Times to the Present. 1938–39, vol. 2, pp. 1667–96; vol. 5, pt. 1, pls. 734–35, 738; and Blair, Sheila S. "The Ilkhanid Shrine Complex at Natanz." PhD diss. Center for Middle Eastern Studies. Harvard University, 1986, pp. 100–101 and no. 23. Blair, p. 64, states that about twenty such tiles are known. She reproduces the Museum’s piece on p. 137, pl. 53. See also Blair, Sheila [S]. "The Religious Art of the Ilkhanids." In The Legacy of Genghis Khan. Exhibition, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Catalogued by Linda Komaroff, Stefano Carboni, and others.New York, 2002, pp. 126–28 and fig. 149, no. 114. For information on the movement of tiles from Natanz into private and public collections, see Masuya, Tomoko. "Persian Tiles on European Walls: Collecting Ilkhanid Tiles in Nineteenth-Century Europe." Ars Orientalis 30 [Exhibiting the Middle East: Collections and Perceptions of Islamic Art, edited by Linda Komaroff] (2000), pp. 39–54, esp. pp. 41–44.

5. Blair 1986 (see note 4), p. 134, pl. 47, shows a section of where the cross- and star-shaped tile dado and related luster frieze once were installed. On ibid., p. 64, Blair states that this dado measures about sixty-five inches (165 cm) high. See also pp. 50, 64, where she discusses the placement of the Metropolitan’s tile with respect to the dado.

6. Ibid., p. 5. The shaikh is said to have died in about A.H. 699/1299–1300 A.D. For more on the dating of the different parts of the complex, see ibid., pp. 17, and 20ff.

7. Ibid., p. 21.

8. On ibid., p. 64, Blair states that other tiles in the group contain portions of verses 76:1–7.


Frieze Tile from Natanz

At Natanz in Central iran, the grave of 'Abd al-Samad (d. 1299), a leading Suhravardi shaikh, was transformed into a major shrine complex by one of his disciples, Zain al-Din Mastari (d. 1312), a lieutenant of Sa'd al-Din Sivaji, chief vizier under Sultan Oljeitu.[1] Such monuments attest to the growing popularity and legitimization of Sufi, or mystical, orders in the Ilkhanid period.

The interior of the tomb was once richly adorned with luster tiles: a wall dado of star and cross tiles surmounted by a frieze.[2] Some twenty components of the frieze survive, this tile among them.[3] In each the main register carries part of an inscription in molded relief against a painted background of dense foliage inhabited by birds. In this tile this inscription gives the last part of the date"[Shawwa]I 707," or March–April 1308. The upper border of the tile is a band of paired birds against a vegetal background. The narrow lower border is divided into square compartments with an abstract design.

The heads of the birds on this tile, as on all the other surviving tiles of the frieze, have been chipped off, presumably by iconoclasts who believed that representational imagery had no place in a religious context. The presence of birds as part of the design may have been an allusion to the popular tradition that "the souls of martyrs are like green birds who will eat the fruits of paradise."[4]

Like most of the extant tiles from Natanz, this frieze tile was removed from the shrine complex in the late nineteenth century.[5]

[Komaroff and Carboni 2002]

Footnotes:

1. Blair, Sheila S. The Ilkhanid Shrine Complex at Natanz, Iran. Harvard Middle East Papers, Classical Series, 1. Cambridge, Mass.: Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University, 1986, pp. 5–7.

2. Ibid., pp. 50, 64, pl. 47.

3. Carboni, Stefano and Tomoko Masuya. Persian Tiles. Exh. cat. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1993, p. 25, no. 20.

4. Blair 1986 (see note 1), p. 21, where the verse is cited.

5. See Masuya, Tomoko. "Persian Tiles on European Walls: Collecting Ilkhanid Tiles in Nineteenth Century Europe." Ars Orientalis 30 (2000), pp. 39–54. Special Issue, Exhibiting the Middle East: Collections and Perceptions of Islamic Art, edited by Linda Komaroff.


Luster frieze tile

This tile is divided into three horizontal fields: the upper field forms an ornamental border with plants and confronted birds, which are unusual for tiles of a religious nature and probably for this reason they have been defaced; the larger central field contains an inscription in relief painted in blue and the background is filled with birds, again defaced, and scrolls; the lower field forms a narrow register of patterns set in compartments. The Arabic inscription reads: .. .l sana sab' wa sab'tumi'a ( "...l, the year seven and seven hundred [A.D. 1307–8]"). The "1" before the year is probably the last letter of the name of the Arabic month "Shawwäl"; if this is the case, the date would be limited to March 25–April 22, A.D. 1308. Although the presence of the birds would suggest its use on a secular building, this tile belongs to a frieze of the tomb of the sufi shaykh 'Abd al-Samäd at Natanz. Sheila Blair suggests that this frieze used to run atop six rows of star and cross tiles on the wall of the shrine. About twenty tiles in various collections are known from this frieze, which contains quotations from sura 76.


[Carboni and Masuya 1993]

Inscription: In Arabic in thuluth script:[1]
شوا[ ل سنة سبع وسبعمایة[
[Shawwa]l of the year A.H. 707 [A.D. March 24–April 22, 1308] [2]

Footnotes:
1. It has been suggested that the letter lam, positioned at the beginning of the text, likely represents the last letter of the month Shawwal, allowing us to more precisely date the tile to March 24 to April 22 of 1308. See Carboni and Masuya 1993, p. 25, no. 20.
2. (The spelling of سبعمایة is provided as it appears on the tile).

Shrine of Nur al-Din 'Abd al-Samad at Natanz, Iran (from 1308)

Emile Rey, New York (until 1912; gifted to MMA)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Hagop Kevorkian Fund Special Exhibitions Gallery. "Persian Tiles," May 4, 1993–January 2, 1994, no. 20.

New York. The Hagop Kevorkian Special Exhibitions Gallery, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Nature of Islamic Ornament, Part IV: Figural Representation," September 16, 1999–January 30, 2000, no catalogue.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Legacy of Genghis Khan: Courtly Art and Culture in Western Asia 1256-1353," October 28, 2002–February 16, 2003, no. 114.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art. "The Legacy of Genghis Khan: Courtly Art and Culture in Western Asia 1256-1353," April 13–July 27, 2003, no. 114.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Balcony Calligraphy Exhibition," June 1–October 26, 2009, no catalogue.

Dimand, Maurice S. A Handbook of Muhammedan Decorative Arts. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1930. p. 130.

Ettinghausen, Richard, and Arthur Upham Pope. "Dated Faience." In Survey of Persian Art. vol. 2. 1939. no. 101, p. 1684 (not ill.).

Blair, Sheila S. "The Ilkhanid Shrine Complex at Natanz." PhD diss., Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University, 1986. pp. 5–7, 21, 50, 64, ill. pl. 47.

Welch, Stuart Cary. The Islamic World. vol. 11. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1987. p. 75, ill. fig. 55 (color).

Carboni, Stefano, and Tomoko Masuya. Persian Tiles. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1993. no. 20, p. 25, ill. (b/w).

Masuya, Tomoko. "Persian Tiles on European Walls." Ars Orientalis vol. 30 (2000). p. 40, ill. fig 1 (b/w).

Rossabi, Morris, Charles Melville, James C. Y. Watt, Tomoko Masuya, Sheila Blair, Robert Hillenbrand, Linda Komaroff, Stefano Carboni, Sarah Bertelan, and John Hirx. The Legacy of Genghis Khan: Courtly Art and Culture in Western Asia, 1256–1353, edited by Stefano Carboni, and Linda Komaroff. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002. no. 114, pp. 127, 268, ill. fig. 149 (color).

Ekhtiar, Maryam, Priscilla P. Soucek, Sheila R. Canby, and Navina Haidar, ed. Masterpieces from the Department of Islamic Art in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1st ed. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2011. no. 77, p. 120, ill. (color).