Fig. 36 in Léon Parvillée, Architecture et décoration turque au XVe siècle, Paris: A. Morel et Cie, 1874. A black and white print showing a polylobed arched stucco and glass window, depicting the stucco grille, not the pieces of glass. The stucco lattice is drawn in great detail, showing the oblique carving and the different levels of the surface. The tendrils and palmettes have a broader stucco profile, while the leaves and flowers within these tendrils are formed by a thinner one. In addition, thinner stucco pieces within the tendril outlines create a discreet division into small sections. They were not placed there for aesthetic reasons: they made it possible to fix on the back pieces of glass so small that they did not need to be cut into the curved shape of the tendril.
The effect of a lower and a higher surface allows a distinction to be made between background and main ornament. The latter is formed by a tendril originating from an encircled, trilobed palmette adjoining the window’s bottom line. The tendril grows branches carrying palmettes and split palmettes symmetrically on each side. Two branches merge into each other on the central axis, to depart again as three upwards growing branches. The central one emerges into a nine-lobed palmette and further floral forms. The other two branches form symmetrical curves merging again to carry a five-lobed palmette surrounded by tendrils.
The central section is surrounded by two bands with repeated simple perforations in the stucco, which interestingly are not carved at an angle. The outer frame consists of a thick stucco form with alternating catouches and circular holes. Within each of the cartouches a thinner line forms half circles that create a repeating pattern, and in each hole a thinner line forms a flower.
The stucco window is held in a frame with slightly wavy parallel lines, indicating that it was made of wood.

The window is shown removed from its architectural context, the Yeşil Türbe (Green Tomb) in Bursa, which was built after 1421. There, it was installed in the lower part (‘partie inférieure’), meaning the row of windows above the rectangular windows at eye level. The stucco and glass window is depicted without any trace of damage. In neither the caption nor the text is there information as to whether the image shows a window that survived the severe earthquake of 1855 in situ, or a window created during the restoration works.
In his publication Architecture et décoration turque au XVe siècle, Parvillée (1874, pp. 14–15) mentions that in 1862 the Yeşil Türbe (Green Tomb) was in such a ruinous state that even its demolition was considered. In his chapter on the Yeşil Cami (Green Mosque) in Die Ottomanische Baukunst / L’Architecture ottomane / Uṣūl-i Miʿmāriyye-i ʿUsmaniyye of 1873, Marie de Launay (1873, p. 25) specifies that the stucco and glass windows of the Yeşil Türbe (Green Tomb) had been restored under Ahmed Vefik Efendi, who commissioned the restoration works in Bursa from Parvillée (Parvillée, 1874, p. 4). In Parvillée’s publication (1874, p. 1), the window is presented as a creation of early Ottoman times, as he clearly states that all the works documented in his book stem from the period from the 14th to the 17th centuries. But it is unlikely that a fragile window survived the passing of time and earthquakes in this perfectly preserved state. It remains an open question therefore whether the window depicted is a creation of contemporary craftsmen, perhaps based on a design by Parvillée, or the outcome of a restoration based on surviving historical fragments.

Typologically, this window is very similar to the superior window of the Yeşil Türbe (Green Tomb) depicted by Parvillée (IG_245). Its typology does not correspond to the examples in Western collections, which are mostly of Egyptian or Tunisian provenance and for the larger part were not made for mosques. Their stucco work tends to be less delicate and detailed, and they mostly show geometrical patterns, or singular motifs, like flowers in a vase, rather than a surface-filling floral ornament of intertwined tendrils and palmettes.
A similar typology, with a tendril with palmettes and split palmettes growing upwards and forming symmetrical curves, can be found in a window of the Süleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul depicted by Pietro Montani in Marie de Launay’s Die Ottomanische Baukunst / L’Architecture ottomane / Uṣūl-i Miʿmāriyye-i ʿUsmaniyye of 1873 (IG_234).