From International Timurid to Ottoman: a Change of Taste in Sixteenth-Century Ceramic Tiles

GULRU NECIPOGLU FROM INTERNATIONAL TIMURID TO OTTOMAN: A CHANGE OF TASTE IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY CERAMIC TILES Before Iznik reached its undisputed position of promi tiles such as the ones transferred by the Grand Vizier nence in the production ofunderglaze painted architec Riistem Pasha from another bath to the Yeni Kaphca tural tile revetments around 1550, Ottoman buildings Baths of Bursa restored in 960 (1552-53), suggesting were decorated by a technically and stylistically varied that the manufacture of tile revetments on a large scale repertoire of tiles characterized by a Turco-Iranian had not yet begun." "international Timurid" taste. Fifteenth-century Otto Extensive tile decoration appears for the first time in man tile revetments can be ascribed to immigrant the Yesil mosque and tomb complex of Mehmed I in craftsmen from Iran working with local assistants. I Fol Bursa, built between 1419 and 1424 to commemorate lowing them were a group attached to a hitherto un the restoration of Ottoman rule following a dynastic known ceramics workshop in Istanbul, headed by one crisis caused by Timur's defeat of Bayezid I in 1402. of the Tabrizi master craftsmen whom Selim I had The "Masters ofTabriz" who signed the tilework were brought to his capital following a victory over the Safa supervised by the court designer Ali ibn Ilyas Ali, vids in 1514. Identifying the output of that workshop, known as "na~~iiI (All," who was responsible for coor which was responsible for making the tile revetments dinating the decorative program, which consisted of for most of the imperial Ottoman buildings commis tilework, wall painting, woodwork, and stone carving." sioned up to the early 1550's, has important implica The sixteenth-century Ottoman biographer Taskoprii tions for understanding the subsequent revolution in liizade states that the designer Ali, a native of Bursa, taste and technology pioneered in Iznik. had been carried offby Timur to Transoxiana where he Iznik played a relatively unimportant role in the received his artistic training. He was the first artist to production of architectural tile revetments before the introduce painted decoration in the Timurid mode to mid sixteenth century. Neither textual sources nor re his homeland.' Haci ivaz Pasha, who is identified as the cent excavations provide evidence about tile production superviser ofconstruction in the Yesil mosque's founda on a large scale in that city prior to the construction of tion inscription, is credited by the early-sixteenth-cen the Siileyrnaniye mosque in Istanbul between 1550 and tury historians Nesri and Asrkpasazade with being the 1557. The industry of fritware pottery established in first grand vizier to invite an array of skilled foreign Iznik around the 1470's through Ottoman court patron artisans to the Ottoman court. The foreign ceramicists age had broadened its market base from the 1510's imported by Haci ivaz probably produced their varied onward with expanded production, but not more than a repertoire of euerda seea, monochrome glazed, and un few tiles can be attributed to its potters before the derglaze painted blue-and-white tiles (seen on the sar middle of the sixteenth century. These include the un cophagus ofSitt Hatun at the Yesil tomb) in local kilns derglaze painted blue-and-white border tiles in the at Bursa close to the construction site.' tombs of Sehzadc Mahmud (1506-7) and Ahmed The "Masters ofTabriz" apparently were sent from (1512-13) in Bursa which are decoratively related to Bursa to Edirne to decorate among other buildings the Iznik pottery, but exhibit variations in both glaz e com Muradiye mosque of Murad 11 in the 1430's. The position and body structure that confirm the relative mosque's euerda seea mihrab, which closely resembles unrefinement oftile technology at that point. The group that of the Yesil mosque, has underglaze painted blue of so-called Damascus pottery, produced in Iznik be and-white insets forming a unified group with the un tween 1535 and 1560, also consists almost exclusively of derglaze hexagonal tiles decorating the dadoes. The ceramic vessels except for a few examples ofhexagonal juxtaposition of tiles in several techniques and color SIXTEENTH-CENTURY CERAMIC TILES 137 schemes in the fabric of a single building leaves no fortunately, the wholesale destruction ofcontemporary doubt that they were produced simultaneously by the buildings in Tabriz- the only one to survive is the Blue same ceramic workshop in local kilns. The technical Mosque (1465), where square blue-and-white under examination oftiles made by the Masters ofTabriz has glaze tiles are used in conjunction with a variety of shown that the technology used for making cuerda seea glazed tiles and mosaic-faience - makes the study of and underglaze blue-and-white tiles in the Muradiye this Tabrizi tradition impossible. Its impact was still mosque was the same. The lime-alkali frit of these tiles strong in the Dome of the Rock tiles, signed by Abdallah differed substantially from the lead-alkali frit typical of of Tabriz and produced on the order of Sultan Siiley the blue-and-white underglaze pottery of Iznik." The man between 952 (1545-46) and 959 (1551-52), which Tabrizi masters were in full command of several tile combined in the same scheme tile mosaic, cuerda seca, techniques, including plain or gilt monochrome, under polychrome underglaze, as well as blue-and-white un glaze, euerda seca, and mosaic-faience. Except for the derglaze tiles." As we shall see, the influence of this bannd'itechnique ofglazed bricks unsuited to Ottoman Tabrizi school was also felt in Istanbul up to the middle stone-masonry buildings, this wide-ranging repertoire of the sixteenth century. is characteristic of the work of contemporary Timurid The international-Timurid decorative repertoire tilemakers who similarly juxtaposed tiles of differing with its strong element ofchinoiserie, which developed techniques and color schemes in the same building. in various forms at courts from Samarqand, Herat, Several early-fifteenth-century Timurid buildings in Tabriz, Damascus, and Cairo to the Ottoman world, Khurasan also feature underglaze painted blue-and continued to be influential after the fall of Constanti white tiles used here and there, along with mosaic nople. The masters of Tabriz appear to have moved faience or euerda seea tiles based on a contrasting palette from Edirne to Istanbul, for the two surviving poly of opaque yellow, green, and blue.' Such underglaze chrome tile lunettes in the courtyard of the mosque of painted tiles were used sparingly in Timurid public Mehmed 11 (1463-70) which copy laborious euerda seea architecture, but might have been more common in the tiles in the quicker underglaze technique, resemble the decoration of palaces, as the Chini-Khaneh pavilion ones they made for the 0<; Serefeli mosque of Edirne built by Timur's grandson Ulugh Beg in the 1430's in (1437-47). The continuing impact of Timurid models is Samarqand suggests. Excavations in 1941 at the site of confirmed by the contemporary historian Mu <ali who this lost, porcelain-faced pavilion yielded hexagonal mentions the role of architectural decorators from Khu tiles painted in cobalt blue on a white ground, which are rasan (ahl-i hunar az Khurasiin zamzn) in the mosque believed to have been imported from the Ming imperial complex ofMehmed 11.12 The ceramicist ({inzci) Shuja", factories, as well as local imitations." Spurred by the whose property near that mosque is cited in Mehmed sudden influx ofChinese porcelain at the Timurid court lI's waqfiyya, might well be one ofthese Timurid artists following numerous exchanges of embassies with China who experimented with new methods and materials in the early fifteenth century, such rare examples of under Ottoman patronage as exemplified by the un blue-and-white underglaze painted tiles disappear from precedented polychromy of the underglaze tiles in Meh the architecture of Khurasan after the mid fifteenth med's mosque." century. Surprisingly, Chinese models did not have as An undated Persian document recently published by strong an influence on the Timurid blue-and-white tiles Kmmh confirms the activity of a different group of of Khurasan as they had on the ones executed in fif "tilecutters from Khurasan" (kiishz-tariishiin-i Khurasiin) teenth-century Syria, Egypt, and Turkey." in Istanbul who beg for more work after having com Reflecting local variants ofan international Timurid pleted a pavilion (q~r) for Mehmed 11. Their Timurid taste, blue-and-white tiles of mostly hexagonal shapes flavored tilework is preserved in the Cinili Kosk at the found in Mamluk Syria and Egypt, as well as in the Topkapi Palace (1472) where the bannd'i technique is Ottoman capitals ofBursa and Edirne, appear to have encountered for the first time in Istanbul. Since there been created by artists from Tabriz, the capital of the are no other preserved examples of comparable tile Qaraqoyunlu and Aqqoyunlu Turcoman dynasties. work, these Khurasani tilecutters were apparently un Compared to the tiles of the Tawrizi (i.e., Tabrizi) successful in obtaining the new job for which they had complex in Damascus (ca. 1430), the technical perfec petitioned; they must have returned to their homeland tion of the Muradiye tiles in Edirne suggests that differ soon after." These itinerant tile mosaicists had prob ent groups of itinerant potters were at work .IQ Un- ably been invited specifically for the Cinili Kosk project.

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