İznik is a town in northwestern Turkey, renowned for its Ottoman-era hand painted ceramics & tiles.
İznik tiles decorated walls of shrines, mosques & palaces. Many were taken & put in museums & private collections across the globe.
A thread on exquisite İznik tiles in museums…
Two Iznik Tiles with Continuous Floral Pattern
Ottoman dynasty (1299–1923), c.1560
Pattern is typical of the ‘saz style’ a term that derives from the words saz kalem, or “reed pen.” The style developed in album drawings in black ink during second half of 16thc.
Decorated with confronted parrots framed by a dense border of flowers. The emerald green was used for the first time in 1566/7 on the tiles of the mausoleum of Suleyman the Magnificent
Iznik tile, Turkey (Iznik), late 16th century Ottoman
Square glazed grey earthenware tile decorated in polychrome with a design of a pheasant perched on a flowering tree, within a lobed panel with arabesques at the corners
Most ancient Qur’an manuscripts are now fragments scattered around the world in museums, libraries & collections
Kufic script is one of the oldest forms of Arabic calligraphy, & was used as a preferred script for the Qur’an, many fragments are found in global museums
A thread…
Folio from the "Tashkent Qur'an"
late 8th–early 9th century
Magnificent in size, this folio comes from one of the oldest surviving Qur'an manuscripts in existence. It is written in an early version of the kufic script with no diacritical marks to distinguish the letters
2. Eight-pointed Star-Shaped Tile, second half 13th–14th century, Iran
decorated using a method called lajvardina, a term that references lapis lazuli, & would have been part of a star-and-cross panel adorning the walls of an Ilkhanid palace, mosque, or mausoleum.
The Ottoman court became invested in writing its own history.
The court historian (şehnameci), a new position established in the 1550s, set to work producing manuscripts with illustrations.
Sultan Murad III (r. 1574-1595) in his Library @harvartmuseums
Safavid…
The best artists from across the empire were brought together & under the direction of Bihzad, the famed miniaturist from Herat, and formed a new Safavid style of painting.