- Title
- Tile Panel
- Date Made
- last quarter of 16th century
- Period
- Ottoman (1281-1924)
- Medium
- Fritware, underglaze-painted
- Dimensions
- overall: 29 1/2 x 52 3/4 in. (74.93 x 133.985 cm)
Weight: 80 lb. (36.3 kg)
- Accession Number
- M.73.5.6
- Collecting Area
- Art of the Middle East: Islamic
- Curatorial Notes
From the time of the construction of the great mosque complex of Sultan Süleyman in Istanbul (1550–57) onward, inscribed tiles made in Iznik increasingly came to embellish Ottoman religious monuments. Stencils were used to transfer the designs of both epigraphic and pictorial tile compositions; however, this inscription seems not to have been conceived by one of the many professional calligraphers who flourished under the Ottomans. Rather it may be the work of a highly proficient amateur. The Arabic text—"This world is the sowing ground of the next [world]"—appears to be an unsound hadith, probably a paraphrase of a verse from the Qur’an (42:20).
