Wall panel composed of 28 square tiles

The cuerda seca technique continued to be popular in the Safavid period (sixteenth–seventeenth centuries). During the reign of Shäh 'Abbäs I (1583–1627), both religious and secular buildings were erected by members of the royal family and by dignitaries. The Safavid capital Isfahan and Na'in were the two main centers where those buildings were lavishly decorated with tilework. The old tile-making tradition of composing repetitive geometrical or vegetal patterns was kept alive on mosques and madrasas, but an important innovation on secular buildings was a composition of square tiles individually painted as single elements of an outdoor scene with characters set in a garden landscape. In the royal garden pavilions of secular buildings from the time of Shäh 'Abbäs to that of Shäh Sulaymän (the last example being the Hasht Bihisht of 1669), we can refer to true painting on tiles in the same style of the contemporary miniature painting and frescoes. The cuerda seca technique was suitable for tile painting because painters had few technical problems with the different medium; the only difference was that the outlines had to be painted with a special substance (usually a mixture of oil and manganese) that burnt in the kiln leaving the cuerda seca. Complete panels showing such scenes are in various museums in Europe (one in the Louvre is virtually identical to the present one) and the United States, some are still in situ. The Metropolitan Museum owns three of these panels, all purchased in 1903 (03.9a–c), and reported to come from "a palace pavilion built by Shäh 'Abbäs on the garden avenue of the Chahär Bägh at Isfahan." The panel selected here is of good artistic value according to its style, composition, and to the chromatic choices made by the painter. It shows three men (two of them sitting in conversation, one of the two in the act of writing) and a woman in a garden; such scenes were among the most frequent and fashionable subjects chosen by miniature painters of the Safavid period. The panel is datable to the first quarter of the seventeenth century according to its style and the frequent use of such panels in this period.

[Carboni and Masuya 1993]

Inscription: The poetry on the safina manuscript on the tile panel is a couplet from a ghazal or ode by the famous Persian poet, Hafez of Shiraz: "O king of the virtuous, cries from the sorrow of separation The heart aches for your presence, it is time for you to return"

From the Jahan-nama pavilion built by Shah Abbas (1583–1627) on the garden avenue of the Chahar Bagh at Isfahan

[ Louis Chardon, New York, until 1903; sold to MMA]

New York. Hagop Kevorkian Fund Special Exhibitions Gallery, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Persian Tiles," May 4, 1993–January 2, 1994, no. 35.

Carboni, Stefano, and Tomoko Masuya. Persian Tiles. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1993. no. 35, p. 40, ill. (b/w).