Tile with Floral and Cloud-band Design

This single tile was once part of a wall covered with hundreds of matching tiles, where its pattern would have joined its neighbors to form a continuous design. Long, serrated leaves sweep across it in deep blue and turquoise, and wavy red cloud bands curl between them. Ottoman designers in Istanbul drew patterns like this, and the potters of Iznik painted and fired them for mosques, palaces and tombs. Iznik tiles are known for their crisp white ground and their brilliant raised red, which is a difficult color to achieve. Imagine the pattern continuing in every direction across a wall in a building flooded with light.

Look closely

1. Find the cloud bands. What makes them look like clouds?
2. Follow a long leaf from end to end.
3. Look at the edges. Where would the pattern join the next tile?

While you sit

One tile from a wall of hundreds. Imagine the whole room around you, blue and red and full of light.

Your seat in the galleries: a white marble bench inlaid along its front with a band of blue and red tile.