This blog starts with these nice earrings, which you can buy online. Or you could buy some cushions instead.
As mentioned in the last blog, the 16th– early 17thcentury ‘Damascus School’ of pottery is not seen as the Golden Age of Islamic tile production, this accolade belongs to the master potteries based in Iznik. But these Damascus ‘provincial tiles’ of the Ottoman Empire – its shining capital being based in Istanbul – were the ones more readily available to Western collectors of the 19th century, and it was these tiles which made their way back to the major collections and museums of Europe and America. And it was these collections that William Morris and William de Morgan looked at.
The ‘Damascus School’ influence on the Arts and Crafts Movement
19th century collectors loved the Middle East, it was rich pickings for antiquarian bounty hunters.
The leading aristocratic Victorian painter, Lord Leighton, brought back several room’s worth of Damascus tiles from crumbling buildings in Syria. Happily for Londoners, these tiles are today on display in the ‘Arab Hall’ at the Leighton House Museum.
This blog will continue in pictures as they really do speak for themselves.
And here are some of the Museum of the Order of St John’s collection of (probably) Iznik Damascus tiles
And here are some more familiar designs from closer to home: some scatter cushions, a nice apron, some hand towels and lovely tiles to go behind your cooker.
The muted sage and cobalt blue on cream are unmistakably ‘Damascus
Although all histories of the Arts and Crafts movement will mention the influence of Islamic decorative art on their designs, it was specifically the ‘Damascus School’ of Iznik tiles which were the most influential. Their muted sages and blues on a cream background were repeated in the many of the textile designs of William Morris and in the fireplace tiles of William de Morgan. And their influence endures today, as the British Avant Garde of the 19th century re-surfaced as mass market design in the 1980s and still thrives to this day.