Tekfur Saray, the former fourteenth-century Byzantine palace known as the ‘Palace of the Porphyrogenitus’, situated alongside the land walls of Istanbul, housed an imperial ceramic manufactory that operated from 1719 until the 1750s. Established during the reign of Ahmed III (r. 1703–30), the workshop sought to revive the declining production of ceramic tiles formerly manufactured at Iznik, supplying both restoration projects and new building schemes of the period, such as the Hekimoğlu Ali Pasha Mosque in Istanbul, constructed in 1734–35 (Demirsar Arlı, Belgin, and Ara Altun, Tiles: Treasures of Anatolian Soil: Ottoman Period, Kale Group Cultural Publications, 2008, pp. 322–325).

Despite its palette, which differed from that of Iznik through the use of manganese and yellow in particular, and an iconography sometimes influenced by European models, Tekfur Saray production suffered from inconsistent quality, limited patronage and competition from imported wares. The tulips depicted on these tiles, with their tapering petals opening into corollas, are characteristic of Tekfur Saray production (see tiles in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, inv. no. 119A-1881, and the British Museum, inv. no. G.187).