Jodhpur
— — a blue city under a sandstone fort.
Not only on a wall.
“The old city below Mehrangarh, painted in successive shades of indigo and pale blue, climbing the rock the fort sits on. Founded in 1459 by Rao Jodha as the capital of the kingdom of Marwar. The walls of the old town run nearly 10 kilometres around it. The blue washes catch the late light and hold it long after the desert behind the city has gone gold. Markets, narrow lanes, the sound of bells from the small temples cut into the rock at the foot of the fort. — from the studio
Jodhpur, 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.
Jodhpur lies on the eastern edge of the Thar Desert in western Rajasthan, India, about 335 km west of the state capital Jaipur. The city was founded in 1459 by Rao Jodha of the Rathore clan as the new capital of the kingdom of Marwar, replacing the older Marwar seat at Mandore 9 km to the north. The old walled town sits at roughly 231 metres elevation, ringed by a roughly 10-kilometre defensive wall pierced by seven gates. The metropolitan population now sits near 1.4 million, making Jodhpur the second-largest city in Rajasthan after Jaipur.
The Blue City name comes from the indigo and pale-blue lime-washes that coat the old town houses below Mehrangarh. The tradition is variously traced to Brahmin households, who used the colour to mark caste affiliation, and to the practical insulating and insect-repelling properties of the lime-and-indigo mix in a desert climate that runs past 40 °C through May and June. The blues are not uniform — some near-cobalt, some chalky lavender, some a washed grey-blue where successive coats have weathered through. The colour is densest in the lanes immediately below the fort's southern ramparts.
Mehrangarh rises 122 metres above the city on a sheer rock outcrop, its walls reaching up to 36 metres tall and 21 metres thick in places. Rao Jodha began the fort in 1459; successive Marwar rulers expanded it through the 17th century under Maharajas Jaswant Singh and Ajit Singh. The fort is built from the local pale-yellow sandstone quarried at Sursagar and from the very rock it stands on, with seven gates including the Jai Pol commemorating victories over Jaipur and Bikaner in 1806. The Mehrangarh Museum Trust has operated the fort as a museum since 1972 and holds one of the most complete royal collections in India.