Folia archeologica 22.

Gervers-Molnár Vera: A sárospataki bokályos ház

TILED HOUSE AT SÁROSPATAK 217 mental buildings. Most of those which are known today are believed to have been made at isnik, the antique Nicaea. The tiles found at Sárospatak belong to the socalled "Rhodian Group" of Turkish tiles, made between 1555 and 1700. The Sárospatak tiles are important for this group, since heretofore ceramic specialists have had no sure evidence that a good tomato-red paint was made after 1617. At the same time, only Isnik tiles were known as original pieces. That tiles were also made in Constantinople was known from written documents, but nobody could make a distinction in the actual material, with the result that the Constantinople work was considered inferior. From the letters of György Rákóczi I, it is evident that the Sárospatak tiles were made in Constantinople; their quality is as good as any contemporary pieces known from Isnik. Other Hungarian documents-particularly the letters of Gábor Bethlen and György Rákóczi I-relate that Turkish tiles, possibly made in Constantinople between 1623 and 1642, were used to decorate similar rooms in the palaces at Gyulafehérvár and Gyalu. In 1632 Rákóczi arranged that a Turkish tile maker should come to Transylvania and there is every indication that this master produced tiles there. Turkish tiles were expensive and indeed luxurious goods of the period. Even in Turkey, only the important mosques, the sultans' palaces and some stately houses on the Constantinople sea-shore were decorated with them. In Hungary, the Transylvanian princes alone could afford such a luxury. Outside Turkey, beside the Transylvanian princes, it is known that the Vienna Burg also had a tiled room at the end of the 16th c. Recent excavations in Roumania have shown thatVasile Lupu, prince of Moldavia (1634-165 3), had tiled rooms in his palaces at Suceava and Iasi as well.