Tile

When Freer displayed this fourteenth-century Iranian tile in the Peacock Room in Detroit in 1908, he placed it alongside an array of other Near Eastern tiles and ceramic vessels, all with a variety of blue glazes. He had become interested in Near Eastern pottery in 1902 and went on to purchase a great number of such specimens from the Paris-based dealer Dikran Kelekian. This Iranian ceramic—in the design of an eight-pointed star—has been attributed to the Il-Khanid dynasty (1256-1353) in Rhages, in the province of Tehran.