3Tokyo, Japan

Cross tile Attributed to the Emamzadeh Yahya at Varamin Iran, likely made in Kashan, ca. 660–61/1262–63 Fritware (stonepaste), luster-painted on opaque white glaze 12.17 × 11.89 in. (30.9 × 30.2 cm) Middle Eastern Culture Center in Japan, Mitaka-shi, Tokyo After Akihito Iijima, ed., Sabaku ni moetatsu shikisai: Chukinto 5000 nen no tairu dezain, 2001, p. 78, pl. 75

This cross tile and the surrounding four star tiles can all be attributed to the tomb of Emamzadeh Yahya (Masuya 2001). The possibility of an entry on these tiles was explored, but requests to research and reproduce them were declined.

Figure 1. Overlap of the tile in Richard’s cabinet (Sevruguin’s photograph), Tehran, ca. 1880 and Iijima 2001.
Figure 2. Full view of the panel in Iijima 2001.

Related pages:

  • For two star tiles attributed to the shrine in Takamatsu, Japan, see the Checklist, no. 18

Sources:

  • Masuya, Tomoko. “Serujuku-cho ~ Iruhan-cho Iran no tairu: toko toshi Kashan no koken.” In Sabaku ni moetatsu shikisai: Chukinto 5000 nen no tairu dezain (Burning Colours on Desert: 5000 Years of Tile Design in the Middle East), edited by Akihito Iijima, 29–32, 55–56, 74–87, 117–21. Okayama: Okayama Orient Museum, 2001. (in Japanese)
  • Okano, Tomohiko, ed. Kirameki no perusia toki: 11~14 seiki no gijutsu kakushin to fukko (Brilliance of Persian Ceramics: Technological Innovation and Revival in the 11th-14th Centuries). Tokyo: The Middle Eastern Culture Center in Japan, 2008. (in Japanese)

Thanks to Hossein Nakhaei for identifying the tile in Sevruguin’s photograph and Yui Kanda for preliminary research.