I believe I am the first person to have noticed the Seljuk stucco in the sanctuary Robert Byron stops in Qazvin on the 14th of April 1934. There, he visits the Friday Mosque of the town, recording his visit as follows: “Almost all visitors to Persia travel either by Resht or by Hamadan, and all…
Tag: decoration
The chinoiserie of the Ganj-i Ali Khan Complex
an ugly building, and not so old, but retaining patches of mosaic It is the 24th of March 1934, and Byron is still in Kerman, wandering around and looking for monuments. When writing about the city of Kerman, Robert Byron underlines how he found two noteworthy objects: the first is the mihrab of the Friday Mosque…
The mihrab of the Friday Mosque of Kerman
I found only two objects of note. One was the mihrab-panel in the Friday Mosque Byron, on the 24th of March 1934, is in Kerman. There, he visited also the Jabal-i Sang. In his travelogue, he gives just a short mention of the Friday Mosque of the city, yet, in this short passage, Byron underlines…
Masjid-i Imam and its seven-color technique
pretty, if you like, even magnificent, but not important In mid-March 1934 Byron is back in Isfahan. This time he has certainly more time to go around and carefully visit the most important monuments of the city. It is now, for instance, that he visits properly the Friday Mosque. On the 18th of March 1934,…
Madrasa-i Khan: the place (probably) only Byron photographed
ruined, a state which improves its eighteenth-century tilework Byron did not like Shiraz: on the 17th of February 1934, after visiting the Friday Mosque of the city, our dear traveler goes to the Madrasa-i Khan. This monument is “curious rather than important”, as Byron defined Shirazi monuments as a whole in the same entry that…
The Dome of the Rock – its inscriptions and the religious relations in early Islamic Jerusalem
The Dome of the Rock is probably the most studied Islamic monument. The architectural forms and features of the monuments and the inscriptions that decorate its walls have been studied and discussed thoroughly by scholars and academics, in many occasion creating a link between the Dome and other monuments. I also have written an article on…
Artistic relations between East and West: Italian renaissance painters
It has been some time now that I am more and more interested in artistic influences between the Eastern and Western Mediterranean. As always, nothing new under the sun: I am not the first one. Anna Contadini, in her beautiful article ‘Sharing a Taste? Material Culture and Intellectual Curiosity around the Mediterranean, from the Eleventh to the Sixteenth…
An inscribed ewer from Iran – from the object to the political ideology
Calligraphy is widespread in Islamic architecture of course, but it can be found also on a series of portable objects: woodwork, pottery and for course metalwork. In these cases the content of the inscription is strictly connected to the use of the object.
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