ART 198 - HISTORY OF WORLD CERAMICS

This is a detail of a mosaic tile panel from the entrance to the Madrasa at Registan, Samarkand, and shows the intricate interlocking of these glazed tile pieces. Each piece composing the panel was cut individually to fit into this exacting pattern. The art of Samarkand and the Timurid period seems most closely related to the 'art of the book,' with manuscript illuminations providing the template for designs executed in ceramics. Here the influence is literal. This sunburst medallion from the entrance to the Madrasa exactly duplicates in tile mosaic a form painted in the frontispiece to the Sultan's Anthology of 1410.

Panel from the entrance to the Madrasa at Registan, Samarkand, 1417-20 CE, Mosaic Tile