Persia

The tilework of Isfahan.

When Shah Abbas made Isfahan his capital, he made it one of the great tiled cities of the world. Its mosques carry Safavid geometry two ways: the slow, exact cut mosaic of earlier centuries and a faster painted tile that let a whole dome be clad in a lifetime. Both are drawn from the same nets.

FIG. 1 - An eight-point khatam field in the Isfahan register, drawn live: cobalt and blue with gold strapwork, the seal star of Safavid tilework.

Isfahan under the Safavids

The Safavids ruled Iran from 1501, and from about 1598 Shah Abbas rebuilt Isfahan around the vast Naqsh-e Jahan square. The Sheikh Lotfollah, a private court mosque finished around 1619, and the great Shah Mosque beside it are the result: chambers and domes sheathed in geometric net and floral arabesque, in a palette of deep cobalt, turquoise, white and yellow that reads as blue from across the square.

Two ways to tile a dome

Safavid Isfahan worked tile two ways. The older is mo'araq, cut mosaic: every colour a separately cut piece, exact but very slow. The newer is haft-rangi, seven colours, where several glazes are painted onto one square tile, held apart by a greasy outline, and fired together, so a patch of pattern arrives as a single tile. Haft-rangi trades a little crispness for great speed, and it is how the Safavids clad so much so fast. The geometry underneath is identical; only the making changes.

FIG. 2 - The same seal read at two scales, in a turquoise register: a two-level construction where each face carries a smaller pattern at the same angle.

Derived, not generated

Cut mosaic or seven-colour, the pattern is a construction first and a surface second. The studio draws the Isfahan seal and its two-level elaboration from the geometry and colours them by class, derived not generated, then lets the export decide whether it becomes a cut list or a printed tile.

ISFAHAN, IN ONE SENTENCE - the Safavid tilework of Shah Abbas's capital, the same geometric nets worked both as slow cut mosaic and as the faster seven-colour haft-rangi, in a cobalt-and-turquoise register.

Read on

The golden ratio in Islamic geometry Why the pentagon and decagon carry phi by necessity, and how it fixes the canonical star depths the Isfahan workshops used.

Draw an Isfahan panel yourself.

Build the Safavid seal and its two-level form, recolour in the Isfahan register and export print-ready files - free in the browser.

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Common questions

What is Safavid tilework?

It is the tile ornament of Safavid Iran, roughly 1501 to 1736, at its height in Isfahan under Shah Abbas from about 1598. Its buildings, the Sheikh Lotfollah and the Shah (Imam) Mosque on the great maidan, are clad in geometry and floral arabesque in deep cobalt, turquoise, white and yellow. It is worked two ways, as painstaking cut mosaic and as the faster painted seven-colour tile.

What is haft-rangi?

Haft-rangi means seven colours. It is a technique where several glaze colours are painted onto a single square tile, kept from running by a greasy outline, and fired together, so a whole patch of pattern comes off the kiln as one tile. It is quicker and cheaper than cutting mosaic piece by piece, and the Safavids used it to tile vast surfaces at speed; the trade is a slightly softer edge than true cut mosaic.

What is the Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque?

It is a small domed mosque of about 1603 to 1619 on the east side of the Naqsh-e Jahan square in Isfahan, built for the private use of the Safavid court. It has no minaret and no courtyard, just a single perfect chamber under a dome whose tilework, geometric nets rising into a sunburst, is among the most admired in Iran.