Tag Archives: tiles

Some Islamic figurative art in the Victoria and Albert Museum

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THE VICTORIA AND Albert Museum (‘V&A’) in London’s South Kensington is one of my favourite museums. It contains a huge variety of exquisite artefacts. Some of them were obtained by fair means, and others, such as Tipu’s Tiger (an 18th century mechanical toy), by means that some might consider foul. I do not propose to write about the current discussions on the ethics of museum collections, but instead I will concentrate on some interesting tiles that arrived in the museum from Persia, where they were made during the Safavid Dynasty that was established in 1501 AD, and lasted until 1722.

The 36 tiles, arranged in 4 rows of 9, together depict a garden in which a lady is reclining with her 5 attractively dressed attendants around her, all wearing headgear: their uncovered faces are portrayed fully. This tiled panelling might have been originally made as part of an extensive architectural project in early 17th century Isfahan, the capital of the Safavid Dynasty. Other similar tiled panelling can be found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, so wrote Farshid Emami in his paper “All the City’s Courtesans: A Now-Lost Safavid Pavilion and Its Figural Tile Panels” (published in the Metropolitan Museum Journal in 2019). The panel is shaped so that it could be fitted beneath a window.

The Safavid Dynasty was Islamic. Unlike many other groups in the Islamic world, which discourage or forbid figurative representation, the Safavid rulers, who were great patrons of the arts, developed a dynastic artistic style in which the depiction of human figures played an important role. The tiles that are on display are a fine example of this. According to the V&A’s website (https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O93167/tile-panel/) these tiles were:

“Bought from L.S. Myers, 6 Savile Row, for £275…”

Myers & Co, which flourished at the above-mentioned address in the 19th century, usually dealt with prints. “A Biographical Dictionary of Nineteenth Century Antique and Curiosity Dealers” by MW Westgarth (publ. 2009) revealed:

“Abraham Myers (born c1815/16) traded as a curiosity dealer in Old Bond Street and at New Bond Street, London, from the 1850s. Myers is listed as ‘antiquary dealer’ at 179 New Bond Street in Kelly’s Directory, 1878 and 1886 and at 6 Savile Row in 1886–91.”

So, assuming that LS Myers was associated with this firm, the tiling might well have been bought between 1886 and 1891.

Every visit to the V&A, which might take much of a lifetime to explore fully, is exciting because each time I visit the place, I discover something fascinating, which I had not noticed before. These tiles are no exception to this.

A roof of straw

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Thatcher at work in Cambridgeshire

The tradition of covering roofs with thatch continues all over the English countryside. Although most buildings are now roofed with tiles, there are still quite a few that have a covering of thatch. The thatch has to be renewed regularly, This is a lengthy and costly business that can only be carried out by the small number skilled thatchers, who operate around the country. Because of the costliness of maintaining it, having a thatched roof is now a conspicuous sign of wealth, whereas once it was not.

Out on the tiles in North Yorkshire

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YORKSHIRE IS RICH in the ruins of abbeys and other religious institutions, which were all dissolved (closed down) by Henry VIII in the 16th century and left to decay. The better known of Yorkshire’s ruined abbeys include those at Fountains, Rievaulx, and Whitby. In the North Yorkshire district of Ryedale, there are the extensive ruins of a former Cistercian abbey, founded in 1137 and called Byland Abbey. Having visited ancient but still intact and well-preserved Cistercian monasteries in various places in France, I have a reasonable idea of what these places look like. What I particularly liked about the ruins at Byland was that although much of the old stonework has been taken away and incorporated in other buildings, sufficient remains not only of the abbey church but also of the many buildings (e.g., the refectory, the cloisters, the chapter house, and the abbot’s house) that made up the monastic settlement. Having seen the monasteries in France I was able in my mind’s eye to create an image of how Byland might have looked in its heyday.

Apart from its great beauty as a ruined church, the abbey’s vast former church has something that I cannot recall ever having seen at other ruined abbeys I have visited. Exposed to the open air and risking being trod upon by visitors are many quite large expanses of mediaeval floor tiling. Many of the fired clay tiles still bear their coloured glazes. There are patches of tiling where they are laid out in circular geometric patterns. It was surprising to see such a great number of these tiles because even in many of the still intact British churches and cathedrals, such ancient flooring is quite rarely preserved to such an extent as in the ruined Byland Abbey.

I was told that when the abbeys were dissolved by Henry VIII, their roofs were removed, and this ensured that the buildings became unusable and fell into decay. The west end of Byland’s huge church contains the remains of a masonry circle that was once the frame for an enormous rose window, believed to be a prototype for the rose window that still can be seen at York Minster. While the Minster is a sight not to be missed, so is Byland Abbey. The latter might not have such a spectacular location as the ruins at Whitby and Rievaulx, it is, in my opinion, a far more interesting place to explore.