Diyarbakir Tile Panel

Following the decline of Iznik at the beginning of the 17th century, production of tiles began in the Southeastern Anatolian town of Diyarbakir.¹ The workshops of Diyarbakir were close in style and technique to Iznik. Diyarbakir tiles are distinguishable from Iznik tiles by their bluish overglaze and green which blurs slightly under the glaze.²
Tulips, roses, carnations, hyacinths, acalendula, and hayati motifs emanate from a vase decorate with prunus blossoms. They are surrounded by a turquoise mandorla. The remaining section of the tile is decorated with saz leaves and rosettes in reserve on a cobalt blue background. The border tiles are decorated with carnations, tulips, and five-lobed blossoms. A turquoise strip runs through the centre of the composition. The tile is framed on one side by a turquoise border and the other by a black and white geometric braid. 
Diyarbakir tiles rarely survive on buildings.³ However, tiles of this design can be found on the Western wall of the Sahabeler Türbesi (the Mausoleum of the Companions) in Diyarbakir.⁴ Though these three tiles have been grouped to create a panel, they are not placed like this in situ in the Sahabeler Türbesi. Rather, the border tiles run vertical around the doorways of the tomb. 
A pair of ogee-shaped tiles, cut down from its original rectangular shape, with the same design are in the Powerhouse Collection, Sydney (accession nos 89/1440 and 89/1440-1). A panel of Iznik tiles, from which this Diyarbakir design was drawn, is in the Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo.<sup>5

1</sup> Denny, Walter B. Iznik: The Artistry of Ottoman Ceramics. London: Thames & Hudson, 2004. P. 215. 
² Denny. Op. Cit. 215.
³ Ibid. 214-215.
⁴ See Çiğ, Cemal. ‘An Assessment on some tiles from the Ottoman period in Diyarbakir’, Istanbul Journal of Social Sciences 8 (2014), pp 10, 16. 
⁵ Degeorge. G. and Porter, Y. The Art of the Islamic Tile. Paris: Flammarion, 2002. p. 211.