This watercolor sketch shows a decorative detail from the northeast mausoleum in the northern cluster of shrines at the Shah-i Zindah necropolis (Samarkand, Uzbekistan). The sketch was included in the archeological part of <em>Turkestan Album</em>, a six-volume survey produced in 1871-72, under the patronage of General Konstantin P. von Kaufman, the first governor-general (1867-82) of Turkestan, as the Russian Empire's Central Asian territories were called. The album devotes special attention to Samarkand’s Islamic architecture, such as 14th- and 15th-century monuments from the reign of Timur (Tamerlane) and his successors. Of particular note is Shah-i Zindah (Persian for “living king”), built on the elevated site of an ancient settlement known as Afrosiab and revered as a memorial to Kusam-ibn-Abbas, a cousin of the Prophet Muhammad. Although the patron of this mausoleum has not been conclusively identified, it was built in 1360-61, most likely for a maiden of noble birth. The collapse of the mausoleum dome enables a clear view of the interior walls covered with lavish polychrome ceramic ornamentation in geometric, floral, and inscriptional patterns. This fragment of a decorative wall detail uses tendril and foliate motifs. Although simplified, such sketches conveyed color information unavailable in the photography of that period.
<br>Architectural decorations and ornaments; Islamic architecture; Sepulchral monuments; Shāh-i Zindah; Tombs; Watercolors
Shostak, L. A.
between 1865 and 1872 <div style="display: none;">date QS:P571,+1850-00-00T00:00:00Z/7,P1319,+1865-00-00T00:00:00Z/9,P1326,+1872-00-00T00:00:00Z/9</div>
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