View of vaults from inside the dome chamber of the Blue Mosque, showing detail of the decorative mosaic faience.
The side walls and the middle panels on the face of the piers are decorated with floriated crosses inset within a surface of unglazed brick. The dados are covered in small hexagonal tiles, while the upper panels are completely sheathed in deep cobalt tempered brilliantly by narrow bands of turquoise and elegant white thuluth. The Mosque itself (also known as the Masjid-i-Kabud, Masjid-e-Muzaffariyah, and Goy Masjid) was constructed at Tabriz in 1465 under the patronage of Saliha Khanum, the daughter of Jahan Shah Qara Qoyunlu. It is one of the few completely roofed mosques in Iran, a result of the harshly cold climate of Tabriz. The mosque was known within Iran as the “Firuzeh-e-Islam” or the Turqoise of Islam, because of the incredibly rich decoration that sheathes the mosque, predominantly in dark blue. Lisa Golombek and Donald Wilber are of the opinion that “the mosaic faience decoration displays a mastery of the decorative arts never surpassed in later monuments.” The dome and the minarets have since been destroyed by a great earthquake in 1976.
Photograph created May 1967. Photograph processed September 1967. Formerly catalogued as B45.350, BC.069. Notes written on the slide or index: Tabriz.
