Safavid Court

Author(s): Horace H. F. Jayne

Source: Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin, Vol. 53, No. 256, The Far Eastern Wing (Winter,
1958), p. 24
Published by: Philadelphia Museum of Art
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3795099 .
Accessed: 08/01/2011 06:24

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 SAFAVID COURT
Tile Mosaics of the fifteenth century
IN creating the Safavid court two pur- makers were renowned. The panels have a
poses were in mind, first to create a gem-like quality that immediately strikes
chamber with adequate ceiling height the eye and the total effect of the revetment
where a selection of important carpets in is memorable, recalling as it does, both in
the Museum's collections could be dis- design and color, the astonishingly rich tile
played, and, second, to provide revetment domes and minarets, facades and mihrabs of
space for installing a striking series of mo- the medieval Iranian cities.
saic panels said to have come from a mosque The large tree-carpet that usually occu-
in Isfahan. By using simple elements char- pies the south wall is one of the most im-
acteristic of Islamic architecture a setting, portant of the Joseph Lees Williams Me-
both for the rugs and for the mosaics, has morial Collection, bequeathed to the
been harmoniously achieved without re- Museum in 1956. In the quality of its weav-
producing any actual existing interior. ing as well as in the originality of its de-
The panels with their alternating elabo- sign, this carpet is in many respects unique.
rated palmette and star motifs are made up Smaller but equally interesting rugs in
of a myriad of pieces shaped from bright the Williams Collection and the McIlhenny
colored tile: mirror-black mingled with Collection are customarily exhibited in the
various shades of faun and umber predomi- other wall spaces of the Safavid court, while
nates in the complex designs which are set a desk case in the center of the room con-
into a background of brilliant turquoise, a tains a selection of Near Eastern illuminated
color for which the fifteenth century tile- manuscripts.. H. F. J.

SAFAVID COURT
View of East Wall
Showing Tree Carpet
and Tile Mosaics

24