Gwalior
— — a fortress that taught a country how to sing.
Not only on a wall.
“A city in central India built around a sandstone bluff that has held a fort for more than a thousand years. The hill rises 100 metres above the plain. The Man Singh palace runs blue-tiled along its eastern face. Below the rock is the tomb of Tansen and a December music festival held there every year since 1924.
Gwalior, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Gwalior sits in northern Madhya Pradesh, about 320 kilometres south of Delhi and 120 kilometres south of Agra. The city of roughly 1.1 million wraps around a flat-topped sandstone hill that rises 100 metres above the surrounding plain. The hill has held a fortress in some form since at least the 8th century. Modern Gwalior grew under the Scindia dynasty of the Maratha Empire, who built Jai Vilas Palace in 1874 and still maintain part of it as a residence and museum. The city is connected by rail on the Delhi to Chennai main line.
Gwalior Fort runs almost three kilometres along the top of its sandstone ridge, one of the largest forts in India by enclosed area. The eastern wall holds Man Singh Palace, built between 1486 and 1516 under Raja Man Singh Tomar, faced with bands of turquoise, yellow, and green glazed tile that still hold their colour. Inside the walls stand Teli ka Mandir, a 30-metre 9th-century Pratihara temple, and the 11th-century Sas-Bahu twin temples. The Mughal emperor Babur called the fort the pearl in the necklace of the forts of Hind in 1528.
The Tansen Samaroh is one of India's oldest classical music festivals, held each December at the tomb of Mian Tansen, the 16th-century vocalist of Akbar's court and a founding figure of Hindustani classical music. The festival has run annually since 1924. Dhrupad and khayal performers come from across India and abroad to sing through the night beside the tomb, in the open air, under the tamarind tree said to have grown from the original grave. The Gwalior gharana itself, the oldest school of khayal singing, traces back to musicians of this court.