SAFAVID IRAN, 17TH CENTURY

The cuerda seca (‘dry cord’) technique was one of the most extensively used forms of tile decoration in Safavid Iran. The method developed alongside tile mosaic in Central Asia in the latter part of the 14th century but was favoured during the reign of Shah ‘Abbas I because of its speed which allowed for monuments in Isfahan and nearby Na’in to be erected and decorated incredibly quickly (Venetia Porter, Islamic Tiles, London 1995, p. 175). While mosques and madrasas employed the traditional style of repeating geometric and vegetal designs, larger narrative scenes made up of individually painted tiles were a significant innovation for secular settings. These scenes could be purely bucolic or illustrate scenes from popular Persian poetry. Such scenes typically depicted outdoor settings with characters in garden landscapes and were commonly used in royal garden pavilions during the reign of Shah 'Abbas I and later through to the 1680s. Notable examples of such compositions can be found in the Metropolitan Museum (acc.no.03.9a), the Victoria & Albert Museum (acc.no.139:1 to 4-1891) and the Louvre (OA 3340).

Unlike the three panels mentioned above, the present lot includes written poetry within the composition. A very closely related tile to the present panel was sold in these Rooms, 28 October 2020, lot 36, and would have been part of a similar figural composition. That tile shared the same yellow floral border as the present panel and was decorated with verses from Khosraw va Shirin written in black nasta’liq. Although the text on our panel does not fit to the same poem as the 2020 tile, it is very possible that the two panels adorned the same pavilion or monument.