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1. TWO COLUMNS
Northern India (Multan)
circa 1800
Height: 30.5 cm Width: 32.5 cm Depth: 4.5 cm
TWO COLUMNS

An unusual red clay underglaze-painted and moulded square tile in hues of turquoise, yellow, green, red and cobalt blue on a white slip ground, under a transparent glaze and depicting a pair of raised three-dimensional architectural columns against a crackled off-white ground.

The pair of identical columns are each segmented, with each section depicting a differing design of stylised floral sprays. The rectangular bases have diamond cartouches in cobalt and white, each containing a floral rosette with a yellow bud. The cartouches are set against a green ground and surrounded by further rosette sprays. Above, a large cusped field of scrolling split-leaf palmettes in white and yellow are reserved against a cobalt blue ground and framed above and below by thin turquoise borders. A narrowing field of white lappets against a rust red ground above gives way to a highly raised collar of cusped chevrons in white, turquoise and cobalt. To the top, a large field of vertical columns in turquoise and cobalt blue contain patterns of linked stylised white sprays with different coloured buds. Yellow and red lappet patterns frame the columns to top and bottom.

The unusual palette of this tile combined with its moulded form creates a rare spectacle. It would have been part of a larger panel of similar tiles decorating the wall of a palace or grand private residence. Comparable moulded tiles can be seen along the parapet of the mausoleum of the Sufi poet Shah Abdul Latif in Bhit Shah, Sindh, Pakistan, built by Ghulam Shah Kalhoro in the late eighteenth century and published in Abdul Hamid Akhund and Nasreen Askari, Tale of the Tile: The Ceramic Traditions of Pakistan, 2011, p. 110, fig. 177. According to Abdul Hamid Akhund and Nasreen Askari, the architecture of this shrine is an amalgamation of both Sindh and Multan decorative styles (Akhund and Askari, p. 111). The blue, turquoise, yellow, and apple green glazes used on the tiles on the dome and parapet of this mausoleum resemble those on this tile.


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