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Craft

Turkish Çini Fritware Ceramic & Tile Craft

Turkey

High-quartz fritware ceramics and architectural tiles of İznik and Kütahya underglaze-painted in cobalt, turquoise, and bole-red.

Turkish Çini Fritware Ceramic & Tile Craft — archival documentary photograph
Photo: Turkey; Iznik · Wikimedia Commons · Public domain+ Add licensed photo →

The tradition & historical record

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Formulated from eighty percent ground quartz pebbles bonded with glass frit and white plastic clay, Çini tiles are pounced through charcoal-dusted paper stencils (iğneleme) and hand-outlined in black chromite pigment. 1

Filled with cobalt blue, copper turquoise, sage green, and raised relief coral-red Armenian bole before transparent alkaline glazing. Inscribed by UNESCO in 2016. 1

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Same family · with a photograph