glaze painted earthenware, of square form, depicting roses, a lily and other flowers with yellow stems issuing from an ornamental urn, on green ground, 19.3 x 18cm

Provenance: Collection of Robert Skelton, O.B.E. (1929-2022). Acquired from Cyril Andrade Antiques, King's Road, London, in the 1960s

Illustrated: Millner 2021, p.78 (detail)

The tomb of Madani in Srinagar commemorates the Sufi saint Sayyid Muhammad al-Madani, who died in 1445 and was built soon after his death. Two hundred years later, in the reign of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, a monumental gateway was constructed, richly embellished with polychrome painted tiles. The only other historical tiled building in the city, the tomb of Zain ul-Abidin, dates from the 15th century, and those tiles are plain turquoise brick plugs, so it seems most likely that the Madani tiles were made in Lahore (or at least by Lahori craftsmen), where other cuerda seca tiles can be seen on monuments from this period. By the beginning of the 20th century, the Tomb of Madani was in a poor state and most of the tile revetments were dispersed. Today major groups of these tiles are held by the Shri Pratap Singh Museum, Srinagar, the Patna Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum, and there are numerous other smaller collections, both public and private. Probably the closest comparison to this tile is one from a group in the V&A acquired in 1923 from Frederic Andrews (IM270-1923), director of the Kashmir Technical Institute. For another, almost certainly from the same original panel, now in the Keir Collection, see Millner 2021, fig.27, p.32. (See also lots 110 and 111 in this auction).