Chehel Sotun
— — twenty columns the water doubles to forty.
Not only on a wall.
“A Safavid pavilion built by Shah Abbas II in the middle of the seventeenth century, set in a long walled garden west of Isfahan's great square. Twenty slender wooden columns hold the front porch; the long reflecting pool below makes them forty, which is where the name comes from. Inside, the frescoes still hold their blues. from the studio
Chehel Sotun, 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.
Chehel Sotun, the Pavilion of Forty Columns, was completed in 1647 by Shah Abbas II as a reception hall in the royal garden west of Naqsh-e Jahan Square in Isfahan. The pavilion sits at the head of a long rectangular pool, surrounded by a walled paradise garden of plane trees and watercourses. UNESCO inscribed it in 2011 as part of the Persian Garden serial site. It is one of the best-preserved Safavid pavilions still standing in the city.
The pool that runs in front of the pavilion is the architectural device of the place. Twenty wooden columns carry the porch roof; in the still water they read as forty, which is where the name comes from. The pool is fed by a qanat channel from the garden's western wall and held shallow so the reflection stays clean. In late afternoon the columns and their painted ceilings double cleanly into the surface and the garden quiets.
The interior is a hall of frescoes. Six large wall paintings record Safavid court scenes — the reception of the Mughal emperor Humayun, the battle of Chaldiran against the Ottomans in 1514, the welcome of the Uzbek khan Vali Muhammad. Smaller panels carry Persian miniature traditions of garden, court, and lover. The lapis blues and earth reds were ground from local pigments and have survived nearly four centuries under the timber ceiling.