An impressive Iznik tile panel, Turkey, 1560-1575

made up of four tiles each decorated under the glaze in bright cobalt blue, tomato red and apple green with swirling flowerheads in a polylobed red-bordered roundel, the interstices filled with arabesques on a green ground

This beautiful tile panel shows the Iznik potters at the peak of their technical skills, firing the finest tomato-hued sealing-wax red offset by a brilliant apple or emerald green.  These complimentary colours are combined with the more traditional cobalt blue and fired to dazzling effect against a pure white ground.  

A group of larger tiles of related design are to be found in the Rustem Pasha Mosque of 1561 in Istanbul (see Denny 2004, pp.28-29), which allows us to date this particular panel to between 1560 and 1575.  A tile with the same pattern was sold in these rooms as part of the Collection of the Berkeley Trust, 12 October 2004, lot 75.  Another is recorded in the Barlow Collection, illustrated in Fehérvári 1973, no.205, pl.90a.