• Style/technique: Anglo-persian Arts & Crafts
• Manufacturer: Unattributed*
• Dimensions: 6" x 6"
• Date: circa 1895*

A bold true Arts & Crafts tile in the Iznik (Anglo-Persian) style, the design characteristic of the aesthetic movement and very reminiscent of William de Morgan's 'Persian vase' pattern. True arts and crafts manufacturing entirely done by hand similar to William de Morgan tiles, hand made buff clay body, tin glazed, hand painted and then lead glazed.

Rarely does a complete and non-repeating design so fill the tile, especially a hand painted design with this complexity. Having been able to compare three of these tiles it is clear that they are free hand painted without the use of stencil or pounced outline. A super range of colours, the bright blues characteristic of good tiles of the period and the pink somewhat unusual. Extremely well decorated and fired, a very complex design to paint accurately, the glaze surface is even and has super brilliance.

Probably made for Barnard, Bishop & Barnard famous ironfounders of Norwich, they gave William de Morgan his first major contract and also had tiles made for them (and maybe designed by them) by Mintons China Works and others, these were made in Holland. They specified tiles at half an inch thickness rather than the usual three-eighths.

The back is unmarked, the tile is a little thicker and of denser clay than most tiles of the period, most unlike the majority of Dutch tiles, the edges are also undercut so that there were no gaps between tiles when fitted, truly a quality made item.

*I am advised that the design appears in a Dutch book on tiles with the following information: The design is called Julfa (a city in Armenia) and the original design is still in the collection from tile producer Tighelaar in Makkum. The author suggested c1920 and that the tiles were produced for the London tile dealer Martin van Straaten of 28 - 30 Little Britain, London (current postcode EC1A) who ordered tiles from Makkum from around 1894.

Condition: Very good
Price: £180 (approx $365)
Ref: 02563

Chip bottom left corner, glaze chips to top corners, five glaze chips on the bottom edge. Very few extremely minor surface marks, a very clean, colourful and bright tile.

Condition: Excellent
Price: £180 (approx $350)
Ref: 02563B

Chips to top corners, about half a dozen tiny/very tiny chips to the edges, surface is near perfect. Mark on the vase base is a manufacturing imperfection, the firing conditions slightly different to the above tile has brought out the blue a little brighter but faded the pink. A very clean, colourful and bright tile.

The image is full size at 72 dpi (about 430 pixels wide) in maximum quality JPEG format. A larger 120 dpi image also in maximum quality JPEG format can be forwarded by email if required.

The image is a little oversize rather than cropped close to the edges so that the edges can easily be seen and any chips etc can be quickly spotted. Other marks described are usually not visible at all when the tile is viewed straight as one normally sees it and can only be seen with a critical eye when the tile is tilted to catch imperfections in reflected light. For more details of how we describe marks see Condition.