Questions of Attribution of Some Tiles from Mausoleum in Khanqah of Pir Huseyn

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of medieval Iranian lustre tiles in the collection of the State Hermitage Museum and foreign museum collections. Previously, some tiles were published in 1946 in “Tiles from the mausoleum of Pir Huseyn” by V. A. Kratchkovskaya. V. A. Kratchkovskaya had analyzed the Hermitage collection and published tiles, concluded that some of the tiles belong to Khanqah of Pir Huseyn on the Pirsagat River in Azerbaijan. Tiles from Khanqah were completely stolen by the 1920s and now are stored in Baku, Tbilisi and St. Petersburg. The author found additional materials that made it possible to revise the position of V. A. Kratchkovskaya and to state that some of the previously published tiles could not come  from the monument. The State Hermitage museum has 22 tiles from the lower part of the cenotaph — a ledge. In addition to them, the author found 14 more tiles from this group in various publications and museum collections. After combining the text on the tiles, the author came to the conclusion that V. A. Kratchkovskaya inaccurately determined the number of tiles on each tier. The author clarified dimensions of the ledge, and concluded that the dimensions of the ledge do not fit into the room where the cenotaph was located. V. A. Kratchkovskaya relied only on circumstantial evidence and had no direct confirmation of the origin of the tiles. The author identified some stylistic features uncharacteristic for tiles from Khanqah and called into question attribution of corner tiles and some luster-cobalt stars. 

Keywords:

tiles, mausoleum, Khanqah, Pir Huseyn, V. A. Kratchkovskaya, cenotaph, frieze, panel