What is this?
The piece is a tile is one in a series of tiles from the Chertsey Abbey in Surrey, England. A two-color tile, with its roundel being about 250 mm in diameter, was used as a mosaic conglomeration for the floor of the church. Decorated with a variety of motifs and specialized with a circular band around the roundel, the Tristan and Isolde tile is a reference to the forbidden love in a medieval Celtic legend. The roundel piece was set in a square frame, about 405 mm, and then fired in four parts. The act of framing the circular pictures was easier to fire and lay than the mosaics associated with the combat series in the words of Elizabeth Eames. Yielding from the British Museum where it was restored and reassembled, the medieval tile is in large part preserved due to the technical excellence of its creation.
This decorative tile illustrates a scene of the Celtic legend between Tristan and Isolde. The tiles are constructed with a pictorial roundel as its center-piece with its surrounding borders as smaller pieces fired together in a kiln. The smaller pieces include a range of designs from decorative patterns to specific legends. It refers to Isolde’s journey to Brittany in hopes to aid Tristan who had been wounded in battle. The tile is one of four tiles in a series that is about this legend. It was made on-site at Chertsey Abbey in England within the later parts of the 13th century. Today, it remains as one of the prominent medieval decorative tiles.
The tile is one of four tiles in a series that is about this legend. It was made on-site at Chertsey Abbey in England within the later parts of the 13th century. Today, it remains as one of the prominent medieval decorative tiles. The floral corners of the tile which act as a geometric mechanism to connect this tile to the others found in the Chertsey Abbey. With this tile’s warm tones and foliate corners, it stands in contrast against the figural scene in its centerpiece. Stiff-leaved foliage and fleurs-de-lis, or lily flowers, compose many of the basic motifs found on the tile.
The tile’s grandeur appeal is due to the golden varnish on the surface of the tile. The two-colored tile has become recognized as a prominent feature and reference to the Crusades. Due to the technical and artistic care in the construction of this tile, many of its features are still resembled in its state today. The Chertsey tiles recorded various scenes from the Crusades– from including the battle between Richard the Lionheart & Saladin to the romances of Tristan and Isolde. Tiles were characterized by the center roundel depicting either a combat scene or a reference to the antiquated legend.
A host of motifs, alluding to mythical creatures, is inscribed on the outer-band of the roundel in this tile. It serves to interconnect it to the series of four tiles that are in lieu of referencing this Celtic legend of forbidden love.
The outer-band is not a piece on its own, but rather part of the four decorative border pieces that frame the figural roundel. In contrast to the other tiles found in Chertsey Abbey, many of which that have Anglo-Norman inscriptions on the outer band, this tile's outer band provides an aura of uncertainty and also of the supernatural. In essence, it's as if these mythical creatures in the motifs are overlooking Isolde on her journey to Brittany.