18Two star tiles attributed to the Emamzadeh Yahya

Two star tiles

Iran, probably Kashan, ca. 1260 Fritware (stonepaste), luster-painted on opaque white glaze 12.3 in. (31.2 cm) and 12.1 in. (30.7 cm) Shikoku Folk House Museum Foundation, Takamatsu, Japan, Rasutā-sai [luster] no. 23 and no. 24 Photographs by Yui Kanda, May 2024, courtesy of the Shikoku Folk House Museum Foundation

The Shikoku Folk House Museum Foundation in Takamatsu, Japan (map, website) owns two star tiles attributed to the Emamzadeh Yahya at Varamin. The first tile (no. 23) features a pond with two fish and a stylized symmetrical plant with leaves extending outward into the space above. Its inscription begins with the opening sura al-Fatiha (1), written from the upper right corner to the lower left corner, followed by sura al-Ikhlas (112), written from the lower left corner to the lower right corner. The inscription concludes with an incomplete Arabic prayer of the type occasionally inserted as filler between two sets of Qurʾanic verses (for variants of this prayer, see Hassanalipour and Sedighian 1402 Sh/2023–24, p. 197) (fig. 1):

صدق الله العظیم و صدق رسوله الکریم و نحن علی ما قال ربنا و سیدنا و ولا[یتنا؟]
“The mighty God spoke the truth, and His noble Messenger spoke the truth, and we are upon what our Lord and our Sayyed and [our Guardianship (?)] says.”
Figure 1. Details of the Arabic prayer on star tile no. 23. Annotations by the author. The tile has been rotated here. This is the right side in the view above.

The second tile (no. 24) features a central vegetal design growing from the ground, with a large leaf at the center. Its inscription includes sura al-Fatiha (1), written from the lower right corner to the middle left corner, and the final sura al-Nas (114), written from the middle left corner to the lower right corner. Both designs are known from other tiles attributed to the Emamzadeh Yahya in Varamin (for example, Art Institute of Chicago, British Museum, Louvre). The combinations of verses are also common (for example, Louvre).

These two star tiles were previously part of the private collection of Tatsuo Kato (1923–2022), the founder of Katolec Corporation, a Japan-based company specializing in logistics and electronics. The round sticker on the back of no. 23 and its trace on the backside of no. 24 indicate that Kato purchased these tiles from Hadji Baba London, in reference to the gallery/dealer/family business founded in 1930 and based first in Tehran and then London (see this British Museum record) (figs. 2–3). The years of acquisition and their prices are unrecorded.

Figure 2. The backs of star tiles no. 23 (left) and no. 24 (right). The tile on the left bears a small white sticker (see fig. 3). The trace of this sticker is visible on the tile on the right (see the lower right). Photograph by Yui Kanda, May 2024, courtesy of Shikoku Folk House Museum Foundation.
Figure 3. Detail of the Hadji Baba London sticker on the back of star tile no. 23. Photograph by Yui Kanda, May 2024, courtesy of Shikoku Folk House Museum Foundation.

In 2002, the tiles were transferred to the Shikoku Mura Gallery, a public gallery exhibiting Kato’s collection within Shikoku Mura, an open-air architectural park located at the foot of Mount Yashima. The year prior, they were featured in “Burning Colours on Desert: 5000 Years of Tile Design in the Middle East,” an exhibition held at the Okayama Orient Museum (map, website). It was in the catalog of this exhibition that Tomoko Masuya first attributed the tiles to the Emamzadeh Yahya (Masuya 2001, p. 79, 118; see also her seminal article on the collecting of luster tiles from Iranian shrines). The backs of both tiles bear distinct round stains indicative of previous adhesion, but to what exactly remains unclear (fig. 2). Both of the tiles are currently stored in custom-made boxes (fig. 4).

Figure 4. The star tiles in their custom-made boxes. Photograph by Yui Kanda, May 2024, courtesy of Shikoku Folk House Museum Foundation.

Sources:

  • Masuya, Tomoko. “Persian Tiles on European Walls: Collecting Ilkhanid Tiles in Nineteenth-Century Europe.” Ars Orientalis 30 (2000): 39–54. [JSTOR]
  • Masuya, Tomoko. “Iranian Tiles from the Saljuq to the Ilkhanid Periods: Contribution of the Kashan.” In Burning Colours on Desert: 5000 Years of Tile Design in Middle East, edited by Akihito Iijima, 29–32. Okayama: Okayama Orient Museum, 2001. (in Japanese) [WorldCat]
  • Hassanalipour, Hamid and Hossein Sedighian. “Analytical Research of the Luster Star Tiles of Emamzadeh Yahya in Varamin.” Negarineh Islamic Art 10, 25 (2023): 191–204. (in Persian) [Negarineh Islamic Art]

Yui Kanda Assistant Professor, Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies

Citation: Yui Kanda, “Two star tiles attributed to the Emamzadeh Yahya.” Catalog entry in The Emamzadeh Yahya at Varamin: An Online Exhibition of an Iranian Shrine, directed and edited by Keelan Overton. 33 Arches Productions, January 15, 2025. Host: Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online.