17Star tile attributed to the Emamzadeh Yahya (two half-stars mounted together as one)

The designer, poet, writer, socialist, and founder of the Arts & Crafts Movement William Morris (1834–96) is one of the most significant British figures of the Victorian era (fig. 1). Through his company Morris & Co., he was responsible for hundreds of wallpapers, fabrics, tapestries, and carpets that are iconic of the late nineteenth century and continue to be produced today. His designs were stimulated by his knowledge of art from the Islamic world, which he studied in the South Kensington Museum in London (later the Victoria and Albert Museum, or V&A), and learned through his own collecting. Amongst his collection were two luster half stars of the type commonly attributed to the Emamzadeh Yahya (map). The Qur’anic inscriptions are not continuous between the two tiles, and what appears today as a complete or single tile is in fact a pastiche.

It is possible Morris acquired the tiles in Paris, where in 1874 the French diplomat Émile Charles Bernay sent over 3,000 medieval luster tiles and fragments that he had acquired in Iran. More probable though is that Morris bought them in London, possibly from the London art dealer Myers & Son of 179 New Bond Street (map), who in 1875 was selling some of Bernay’s stock (Carey 2017, p. 99).

The tiles were likely bought pre-mounted together and inserted into a simple oak frame, probably by Morris, to adorn the walls of his London home, Kelmscott House (map). In addition to the tiles, Morris displayed Qajar metalwork peacocks and bowls and many carpets, including a beautiful seventeenth-century Safavid ‘Vase’ carpet from Kerman, now in the V&A (719–1897). Shortly after his death in 1896, his widow Jane Morris lent the tiles to the South London Art Gallery (map). In 1928, his younger daughter May Morris requested they be returned to the family’s country home Kelmscott Manor in Oxfordshire (map). May considered the tiles amongst the greatest treasures of her father’s collection. The tiles are now displayed in the ground floor Garden Hall of the Manor, which is open to the public April to October every year.