Iran Tour and Tourism Guide

 Its elevated porch with 20 wooden pillars renders a special majestic affect to the scene, and the reflection of these pillars in the large pool opposite the edifice displays a beauty of its own. Thus taking the name of Chehel Sotune or 40 pillars.

The terrace is a marvel of elegance.  The slender pillars support a light wooden ceiling with wide fretwork louvres.  Here we should note the influence of Eastern Asian architecture.  Part of the sumptuous decoration-which is perhaps a little heavy-has disappeared.  We must picture the back wall covered with mirros, the doors of rare carved wood, and the pillars, each cut from a single plane-tree trunk, with their fine veneer, their brightly coloured paintings, their mirrors and studs of coloured glass.

We still have the remarkable ceiling with its beams, its beams, its coffering, its painted wood louvres, and its careful inlay-work-rosettes and suns, stars, stylized fruit and foliage.  The great wooden ceilings-a rare luxury in a country so lacking in trees-are among the finest achievements of secular Persian art.  In the center of the terrace is a marble basin guarded by four lions which support the central columns.

Inside, the great hall, sometimes called the throne room, is covered by four cupolas which are no less outstanding than the ceilings.  They have frescoes, stuccoes, and even brightly colored glass studs and mirrored.  The base of the cupola and the honeycomb pendentives have outstanding rich geometrical and floral decorations with a profusion of brilliant reds and gold.

This hall is renowned especially for its frescoes, its panels of ceramics and miniatures.

The upper part of the wall is covered with large historical frescoes depicting court life and the great deeds of the Safavid princes.  Above the entrance door, from right to left, there are a battle scene in which the armies of Shah Ismail, the founder of the Safavid dynasty, are opposed to the Uzbeks, a Mongol people, who threatened the northern frontiers of Persia; another battle, this time set in India and opposing Nader Shah Afshar and Sultan Mahmud, who is shown on a white elephant; a reception given by Shah Abbas II in honor of King Nader Mohammed Khan of Turkestan; and musicians and dancing girls.  On the other wall, opposite the entrance door, we have, from right to left: a feast given by Shah Abbaas the Great, which is a clear and picturesque portrayal of the pomp and ostentations of the Court in Isfahan ; then comes the battle of Shah Ismail against the janissaries of Sultan Suleiman in which the artist has incorporated the legend of the marvelously tempered blade that could cut through a horseman from the head to the saddle; finally, Shah Tahmasp welcoming to his court the Hindu prince Humaiun who fled to Persia in 1543.

In contrast to these large official paintings, we find-on the lower part of the walls-small genre paintings which express a subtler, more delicate aspect of Persian art.  These include ceramic panels in which predominantly rich colors are set against a deep ultramarine background; they are in shades of green and jade, ochre and gold.  There are also much more delicate paintings in which browns and reds predominate.  this is the art of the miniaturist, and we find in it all the subjects, costumes and attitudes dear to the Persian genre painters: young women and very effeminate young men, dances, entertainments, and flirtations, all in a setting of garden and orchards, shady cypresses and fruit trees, and grass studded with flowers.

This large state room is flanked by two smaller rooms, wide open to the garden and containing other paintings believed to be portraits of ambassadors.  In the smaller rooms there are showcases containing an outstanding selection of fine items of Persian China-large soup plates, vases, ewers, large vases with fabulous decoration (imaginary animals, dragons); the blue decorations on a white ground are exquisite.  Finally , there is a 15th century  stained-glass window  (1453) from the  Darb-e-Imam mausoleum.  This is a unique piece in rich and vivid colors.