Damascus
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Objectdecorative tile: Tile panel
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Type of arts & crafts
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MediumStonepaste; polychrome painted under transparent glaze
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SizeH. 22 in. (55.9 cm) W. 33 in. (83.8 cm)
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Geography detailsProbably made in
Town Damascus,
Damascus -
Country today
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Date16th-17th century
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Type of sourceDatabase “Metropolitan Museum of Art”
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Fund that the source refers toMetropolitan Museum of Art
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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.