Kaaba Tile in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, August 2019

Ka'ba Tile
ca. 1720–30

Object Details

Title: Ka'ba Tile

Artist: Osman Ibn Mehmed (Turkish, active first half 18th century)

Patron: `Abduh Mehmed

Date: ca. 1720–30

Geography: Made in Turkey, Istanbul, Tekfur Sarayi (workshop)

Medium: Stonepaste; polychrome painted under transparent glaze

Dimensions: H: 13.8 in. (35 cm)
W: 10.3 in. (26.1 cm)

Classification: Ceramics-Tiles

Credit Line: Gift of John and Fausta Eskenazi, in memory of Victor H. Eskenazi, 2012

Accession Number: 2012.337


This rectangular tile depicts a stylized view of Mecca, with the black-shrouded Ka‘ba in the center of the Masjid al-Haram and other buildings within and around the holy sanctuary. It is part of a larger material corpus related to the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca and sites in its vicinity, which each pious Muslim should perform once in his or her life. Such Ka’ba tiles were a favored theme in Ottoman tile workshops. This one is painted in the traditional color palette used in seventeenth century Iznik tiles. However the bird’s-eye view, inspired by the European pictorial tradition, is a characteristic of later examples made at Tekfur Sarayi in Istanbul, a less well-known Ottoman ceramic workshop.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/457791