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The Pattern Atlas

A hundred plates on the visual language of Islamic art, from girih and zellige to muqarnas, scripts, carpets, astrolabes and gardens, each drawn by construction and captioned like a page from a fine design atlas.

100 printsPortrait · square · landscape · phoneFree · 300 dpi

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A full field of ten-fold girih pattern: cream strapwork weaving over and under through lapis ten-pointed stars, turquoise pentagons and terracotta and gold pieces, with the faint tile edges beneath. Below or beside it the five girih tiles are laid out as a key: decagon, pentagon, rhombus, elongated hexagon and bowtie.

A panel of zellige mosaic on the octagon-and-square grid: cream and lapis eight-pointed stars, turquoise kites, small terracotta and gold four-pointed stars and black corner pieces, every piece separated by an even line of pale grout, inside a black frame.

A panel of gold strapwork that weaves over and under itself through a twelve-fold pattern on a deep ink ground: terracotta twelve-pointed stars, lapis six-pointed stars and small turquoise pieces, the panel edges falling on the pattern's own lines of symmetry.

The compass-and-straightedge construction of an eight-pointed star in fine gold on ink: a circle, its axes and diagonals, the arcs that find them, and two squares set at forty-five degrees, with the star filled in lapis.

A chart of four circular details, each centred on a star rosette with six, eight, ten and twelve points, drawn in lapis line with the central stars in terracotta.

Star FamiliesNo. 5

A six-fold pattern of hexagrams and hexagons, with one region marked to show its symmetry: dashed mirror lines, centres of six-, three- and two-fold rotation, and a gold triangle that is the smallest repeating unit, with a small legend below.

A turned-wood mashrabiya screen in warm brown: beaded lathe-turned spindles meeting at round turned knobs, held in a stepped moulded frame, with a solid inset panel at its centre pierced by an eight-pointed star filled with small turned spokes, all against soft light.

MashrabiyaNo. 7

A pointed-arch window of pale sandstone pierced with a lattice of six-pointed stars and hexagons, the openings shown dark, with incised borders and carved rosettes in the spandrels.

A pointed niche in ink and gold whose hood is filled with tiers of muqarnas cells, each a small pointed niche with a lit and a shaded half. Every tier has its cells offset by half a cell from the tier below and steps inward to the apex, above a fluted wall.

A mihrab drawn in elevation: a pointed niche with a fluted turquoise hood, a hanging lamp and slender colonettes, set inside a rectangular frame banded with gold stars and roundels in the spandrels.

A chart of four arch openings in lapis, each with its ring, ground line and construction marks: pointed, horseshoe, ogee and multifoil, the centres of their curves marked with terracotta dots and dashed lines.

Arch FormsNo. 11

A stone portal built in alternating dark and cream courses, with a pointed arch of cream and terracotta voussoirs over a recess and a joggled lintel of interlocking stones above a studded double door.

A deep blue panel of gold vine scrolls: rows of wave-like stems send a spiral tendril into every bay, each branching from a pair of turquoise and blue split leaves and ending in a terracotta split palmette.

A single stylised blossom shown in section, with terracotta outer petals, gold and lapis inner petals and a dark seed head, rising from turquoise sepals on a stem with serrated saz leaves and two buds.

An Iznik-style tile with a cobalt border of cream rosettes framing a central red tulip, two cobalt carnations, hyacinth sprays and sweeping turquoise saz leaves on white.

Iznik TileNo. 15

A rosette of forked rumi leaves: four mirrored pairs in terracotta and lapis around a gold centre and a small eight-pointed star, with a slender turquoise leaf on each diagonal.

A gilded rosette on ink: a terracotta flower at the centre, a gold sixteen-pointed star, a lapis ring of small leaves, a lobed gold border and a fringe of sixty-four fine blue rays tipped with gold dots.

The word hikma, wisdom, set large in bone in a Kufic typeface on a faint square grid, with terracotta baseline and ascender guides on ink.

The word salam, peace, set four times in black on pale panels, each labelled: Kufic, Naskh, Ruq'a and Nastaliq.

Four ScriptsNo. 19

A chart of glazed zellige pieces in six colours, white, black, lapis, turquoise, honey and terracotta, each cut in the same five exact shapes: eight-pointed star, kite, triangle, square and hexagon.

Zellige PaletteNo. 20

A six-petalled rosette in lapis and blue, drawn on a pale sky ground with its full construction: the first circle, six circles of the same radius centred on its rim, the hexagon and hexagram that join their centres, and the compass points marked in terracotta.

Six-Fold RosetteNo. 21

A large twelve-fold rosette on terracotta: a navy twelve-pointed star ringed by twelve sand and cream petals, inside a circle with its dodecagon and twenty-four division marks, while the full star pattern runs on faintly behind it.

Twelve-Fold RosetteNo. 22

A sixteen-pointed star on ink, drawn as one continuous gold line that joins every fifth of sixteen points on a circle, the rings of shapes it encloses filled in blue, turquoise and terracotta around a deep blue centre, inside a circle marked with its sixteen divisions.

Sixteen-Fold StarNo. 23

A field of ten-fold girih on deep lapis: broad gold straps weave over and under through a large pattern of ten-pointed stars, and each large star is filled with the same kind of pattern at a third of the scale, in sky blue, clay and bone line.

Darb-i ImamNo. 24

Four square panels of the same grid of octagons and squares, its edges dashed and their midpoints marked in terracotta. From each midpoint two lapis lines leave at a set angle, 45, 56.25, 67.5 and 78.75 degrees, and meet in stars that sharpen as the angle grows; each panel is cut along the pattern's mirror lines.

Hankin’s MethodNo. 25

A tiling of deep green octagons and brown squares on pale sage, each octagon set with a gold eight-pointed star and each square with a smaller square, with one corner opened out in a roundel to show its angles of 135, 135 and 90 degrees.

Octagon and SquareNo. 26

A field of cream eight-pointed star tiles, each centred with a lapis or red star and an ochre octagon, interlocking with deep green crosses that carry four small ochre dots, all within dark joints on warm saffron.

Star and CrossNo. 27

A panel on soft rose of burgundy hexagons, each holding a pale six-pointed star, and gold and blue triangles pointing up and down, so that a star of triangles rings every hexagon; one corner is circled where triangle, hexagon, triangle and hexagon meet at 60 and 120 degrees.

TrihexagonalNo. 28

A Solomon's knot on deep teal: a gold loop and a coral loop, two even bands crossing at right angles and passing alternately over and under, inside a dark roundel ringed with fine gold lines.

Solomon’s KnotNo. 29

A rectangular interlace knot on aubergine: a single gold strand runs on the diagonal, turns at the edges of a grid and crosses itself over and under, with the spaces between filled in pink and violet and set with small gold and cream diamonds.

Endless KnotNo. 30

A field of six-pointed stars on deep teal, coloured gold, coral and cream in a repeating three-colour order, each with a smaller star inside, joined by small hexagons and woven through by a pale mint strap that runs over and under.

Hexagram TilingNo. 31

Four brick panels on saffron, each labelled: basket weave of paired bricks, herringbone with diagonal bands of green glazed brick, and two banna'i walls in running bond whose blue and green glazed bricks trace lozenges and chevrons.

An octagonal plan of a muqarnas vault on aubergine: rings of gold, cream, pink and teal squares and rhombi growing out tier by tier from an eight-pointed star of rhombi at the centre, every unit the same edge length.

Muqarnas PlanNo. 33

Two drawings in lapis, terracotta and gold on paper: a section looking at one wall of a domed room, where pointed squinch arches over conical niches span the two corners below a drum and a ribbed dome, and a plan of the square with its four corner niches and the octagon they make.

A section through a domed bay in green and blue on pale sage: two piers carry the rear arch, the curved pendentives fill the corners up to a ring, the dome rises from the ring, and the sphere the pendentives are cut from is dashed in gold. Beside it a plan: the square bay, its corner piers, the ring and the dashed sphere.

PendentiveNo. 35

Four square panels on paper, each filling the plane with one small leaf repeated in two colours by a different symmetry, labelled p6m, p4m, cmm and p4g, with one repeating cell shaded and outlined.

Wallpaper GroupsNo. 36

A pointed arch on deep lapis with alternating gold and bone voussoirs, drawn over its construction: the springing line, the two compass centres, their arcs and the radii that meet at the apex, with smaller lancet, equilateral and drop arches set beside it on the longer formats.

The Pointed ArchNo. 37

Four circles in gold line on ink, each divided by compass and straightedge and shown with its construction and the star it gives: into six by stepping the radius, into eight by bisecting right angles, into ten by Ptolemy's construction of the decagon side, and into twelve by arcs from four points.

Dividing the CircleNo. 38

A field of eight-fold star pattern on terracotta: cream straps weave over and under round large sand stars, each filled with a finer pattern of small navy stars and dark four-pointed stars, among green and navy shapes.

Stars within StarsNo. 39

Two diagrams in burgundy, blue and gold on soft rose: a square with four rectangles along its sides, labelled x² and 2½x, and the same figure completed into a larger square by four small corner squares of 6¼, with the equations beneath.

Completing the SquareNo. 40

An iwan drawn in elevation and plan on terracotta: a pointed arch in a tiled frame opens into a deep vaulted hall with a doorway and grille at the back, flanked by two storeys of niches, with the plan below showing the hall open to the courtyard.

The plan of a four-iwan mosque in deep green on sage: a paved courtyard with a central pool, an iwan opening at the middle of each side, domed bays on a grid of piers all round, and a domed chamber behind the iwan on the qibla side.

Four-Iwan PlanNo. 42

An arcade of the double-arched type known from the Great Mosque of Córdoba: marble columns with gilded capitals carry horseshoe arches, piers above them carry round arches, and both are built of alternating red brick and white stone voussoirs, with the plan of a column forest below in taller formats.

Hypostyle HallNo. 43

A tiled portal on deep blue: a tall rectangular frame in turquoise and buff brick surrounds a pointed arch filled with muqarnas, with roundels in the spandrels, a doorway below and two slender minarets on top, flanked in wider formats by two storeys of arched niches.

Four minarets drawn side by side on pale blue: the brick spiral of Samarra with its ramp winding round a tapering tower, a Mamluk minaret of square, octagonal and round stages, a slender Ottoman pencil minaret with three balconies and a conical cap, and a square Maghrebi tower with a lantern.

Minaret FormsNo. 45

Four domes on ink with fine gold lines: a turquoise ribbed melon dome on a tall drum, a white onion dome with a lotus band and finial, a section through a double-shelled dome showing the void between its two shells, and a broad lead-covered Ottoman dome over a ring of windows.

Dome ProfilesNo. 46

A section through a house with a windcatcher on warm saffron: wind enters the slotted top of the tower and a blue line traces cool air down the shaft, across a pool in the room below and out to the courtyard, while a red line shows warm air rising out of the other shaft. A small plan shows the tower divided into shafts.

WindcatcherNo. 47

A section through a qanat on cream, with the vertical scale exaggerated: a mother well reaches the water table beneath the hills, a gently sloping tunnel carries the water out under the plain, a line of shafts with spoil heaps marks its course, and it emerges at an outlet beside trees and houses.

The plan of a courtyard house on soft rose: a paved court with four sunken planted beds, orange trees and a star-shaped fountain at the centre, a columned gallery around it, long rooms on all four sides, a bent entrance passage and a stair, with an elevation of the courtyard facade above in taller formats.

Courtyard HouseNo. 49

The plan of a walled garden on deep teal: water channels cross at a central pool and octagonal pavilion, dividing the garden into four quarters, each split again into beds of fruit trees, with rows of cypresses along the main walks and small pools at the ends of the axes.

Chahar BaghNo. 50

Four kinds of merlon drawn as strips of wall on pale blue: stepped sandstone merlons, pierced stepped merlons on brick, trefoil merlons on a wall of alternating red and pale courses, and pyramid-capped merlons on a rammed-earth wall.

Three panels of carved stucco in cream on terracotta: style A with compartments of deeply cut vine leaves and grapes, style B with flatter leaves picked out by drilled dots and notches, and style C, the bevelled style, with mirrored abstract forms cut on a slant so that no background is left.

Samarra StuccoNo. 52

A wooden ceiling seen from below on ink: interlaced straps of light wood form eight-pointed stars and polygons painted red, green, blue and gold, framed by a frieze of small gold stars, with the flat centre set within four sloping sides divided by gilded hip lines and a star boss in the middle.

Lacería CeilingNo. 53

The facade of a Mamluk sabil on saffron: below, large windows with bronze grilles set in walls of alternating red and pale stone under joggled lintels and inlaid arches; above, an open loggia of pointed arches behind a wooden balustrade, sheltered by a projecting wooden canopy.

A salsabil on deep teal, in elevation and plan or section: a niche framed with gold stars and crowned with muqarnas holds a marble slab carved with chevron ripples, water runs down it into a basin and then along a narrow channel with small pools to an octagonal fountain.

The plan of a Seljuk han in dark green on sage: thick walls with buttress towers and round corner towers, a monumental portal opening into a courtyard with a small mosque raised on four arches and rooms and arcades along its sides, and behind it a covered hall of aisles with a lantern over the central nave.

CaravanseraiNo. 56

The plan of a courtyard mosque on cream: a prayer hall of columns with a wider central aisle and a dome before the mihrab, the minbar beside it, a courtyard with arcades on three sides and a fountain at its centre, and a minaret on the axis opposite the qibla wall, with labels and leader lines.

Mosque PlanNo. 57

A section through a bathhouse on aubergine, with a plan below in taller formats: a domed changing room with a lantern and fountain, a warm room and a hot room whose domes are set with small glass lights, a raised floor heated by hot air from the furnace, and a boiler and chimney at the end.

Four column capitals in white marble on rose: an acanthus capital with drilled leaves and volutes, a muqarnas capital of stepped cells, a lozenge capital of triangular facets, and a Nasrid capital with a round lower part and a carved cubic block, each on the top of its shaft.

Three gates on deep blue: a Fatimid gate with twin rounded stone towers and a round arch, an Almohad gate of grey stone with a horseshoe arch in concentric bands within a rectangular frame, and a Qajar gate faced in turquoise, yellow and pink tiles with four domed turrets.

City GatesNo. 60

A Persian-style knotted carpet drawn upright with its parts named: a red field strewn with small flowers, a lobed indigo medallion with a pendant above and below, quarter-medallion cornerpieces, an indigo main border with a flowering vine between narrow guard stripes, and a fringe at each end.

Carpet AnatomyNo. 61

Two magnified diagrams of pile knots tied around pale warp threads under cream wefts: the symmetric knot, with both ends rising between its two warps, and the asymmetric knot, with one end free on the outside. Beside them a small gul pattern is shown from the back of a carpet, one knot to each point of colour.

Carpet KnotsNo. 62

Three woven kilim panels set side by side, each framed by a sawtooth border: an elibelinde figure in cream on madder, a pair of ram's horns in saffron on indigo, and a stepped eye in madder and indigo on cream. Small slits open wherever two colours meet along a straight vertical edge.

Kilim MotifsNo. 63

A length of warp ikat in crimson, yellow, indigo and green, its stepped lozenges blurred along the warp, with three small panels explaining the process: warps bound to resist the dye, the dyed threads with their undyed reserve, and the woven result.

A suzani hanging on cream cotton: rows of large red and pink rosettes, each ringed with green serrated leaves and centred on a small star, joined by curving stems with leaves and flowers, inside a border of small rosettes on a meandering vine.

An embroidered chest panel in red, burgundy, gold and green cross stitch on natural linen, with an eight-pointed star at its centre, cypress trees on either side and a toothed border, beside two magnified details of cross stitch and couching.

Four marbled sheets on cream paper, labelled: battal, a ground of scattered drops; gelgit, the same drops drawn back and forth; taraklı, combed into fine waves; and çiçek, a red flower with a stem and leaves drawn on a pale ground.

A brown leather binding laid flat to show its outside: the cover tooled in gold with a central shamsa medallion and pendants, quarter-medallion cornerpieces and ruled borders, joined to a narrow fore-edge flap and a pointed envelope flap. Beside it the inside of the cover, the doublure, with gilt filigree over pale blue.

Islamic BookbindingNo. 68

A box lid covered in khatam work: a field of tiny triangles in brass, bone, ebony, rosewood and green bone forming a regular pattern of six-pointed stars, framed by borders of toothed brass strips. A magnified circle shows one bundle in section.

KhatamkariNo. 69

A pair of cupboard doors in dark wood inlaid with mother-of-pearl: an eight-fold star pattern with large stars and kite-shaped pieces in pale iridescent shell, small four-pointed stars of tortoiseshell and pieces of bone, under small panels with shell cartouches and a border of inlaid lozenges.

Mother-of-Pearl InlayNo. 70

A large roundel from an inlaid brass basin: a whirling rosette at the centre, a ring of silver scrolls, and a broad band of silver Arabic inscription on black, broken by two small whirl medallions. Beside it the basin itself in elevation, with its inscription band and roundels.

Mamluk BrassNo. 71

A white-glazed dish painted in golden lustre: a palmette tree in reserve at the centre against a ground of dotted rings, a lustre band of dotted rings set with four lobed white panels and leaf shapes, and a rim of short strokes. Beside it an eight-pointed star tile with a reserved spiral scroll and a turquoise edge.

LustrewareNo. 72

Two square panels of the same design, an eight-pointed star with leaves, corner rosettes and half-lozenges on cobalt: one as tile mosaic, every colour a separate cut piece set in pale grout, the other as cuerda seca, the colours divided by dark lines and laid across a grid of square tiles.

Two Tile MethodsNo. 73

A glass mosque lamp hanging on three chains against a warm glow: a wide flaring neck banded in blue enamel with a white scroll and red and green palmettes, a rounded body with three visible loop handles and a band of roundels, and a high foot, all edged in gold.

Mosque LampNo. 74

Six tools laid out and labelled: a reed pen with its cut nib, a narrow pen knife, a magnified view of the nib's slit and oblique cut, a lidded brass inkwell, an agate burnisher and a mistar, a card strung with cords for ruling lines.

Calligrapher’s ToolsNo. 75

Five hanks of wool hanging from pegs, each with its dye source drawn beneath it: madder red with its roots, indigo blue with a leafy sprig and a cake of dye, weld yellow with its flower spike, walnut brown with a green husk and a split nut, and khaki yellow with a pomegranate and pieces of dried rind.

Natural DyesNo. 76

Six pigments, each shown as its raw material beside an open mussel shell holding the ground colour: lapis lazuli flecked with gold pyrite, banded green malachite, red vermilion, yellow orpiment, flakes of lead white, and a stack of gold leaf beside a shell of gold.

Manuscript PigmentsNo. 77

A Persian album page with its parts named: a small painting of a cypress, a blossoming tree and a bird on gold-tinted paper at the centre, an inner border of blue paper with gold cloud bands, fine coloured rulings, and a wide margin flecked and painted with gold sprays.

Album PageNo. 78

Four glazed vessels drawn on a centre line, the left half of each cut through to show the wall in solid black and the right half decorated: a waisted albarello with cobalt stripes, a turquoise ewer with a spout and handle, a bowl with cobalt petals and a jug with lozenges and a strap handle.

Pottery FormsNo. 79

A hanging brass lantern glowing against deep blue: a pierced dome and crown over a six-sided body, its front face cut with eight-pointed stars and its sides with lozenges. Beside it three pierced brass samples: stars, teardrops and a lattice.

Pierced LanternNo. 80

The Basmala, fully vowelled, set large in black within a gold-ruled frame on cream, as on a manuscript page, with illuminated headpiece bands of gold, lapis and red above and below in the taller shapes.

A Persian couplet in cream Nastaliq on deep aubergine, the two lines staggered as in a calligrapher's panel, with gold rules, gold corner pieces and a gold medallion between the lines in the taller shapes.

A note card with ruled lines and a red margin on the right, where Arabic writing begins, carrying good morning, how are you, and in the tallest shapes I hope you are well, in blue Ruq'a lettering.

A square panel of square Kufic on a fine grid: subhan Allah, glory be to God, in cream letters turned four times round the square, a mint ring inside, and Allah turned four times in gold at the centre. Taller shapes add a band of the Name above and below.

Square KuficNo. 84

A table of Arabic letters in four columns, isolated, initial, medial and final, read from right to left, with each row a different letter in blue, teal or terracotta on paper. The number of letters grows with the height of the shape.

Letter PositionsNo. 85

A diagram in gold and bone on ink: a column of five rhombic dots, a naskh alif of the same height standing as the diameter of a circle, and a reed pen whose cut nib rests on the top dot.

ProportionNo. 86

The twenty-eight Arabic letters in the abjad order on lapis, each with its number value in gold, arranged as units, tens, hundreds and a thousand, under the traditional memory words abjad hawwaz hutti kalaman sa'fas qurishat thakhadh dazagh.

The twenty-eight Arabic letters in their usual order on cream tiles against rose, read from right to left and numbered. Letters that share a shape, such as ba, ta and tha, share a colour.

The AlphabetNo. 88

Two panels on sage. Above, bare letter shapes beside their dotted forms, the dots in brown. Below, the letter ba with the short-vowel and reading marks: fatha, kasra, damma, sukun, shadda and tanwin, each named.

Dots and VowelsNo. 89

A full palmette on terracotta: a fan of gold, blue and cream lobes rising from a green cup with curled volutes, flanked by two split half-palmettes on scrolling stems, inside a faint roundel. Tall shapes add a stem with paired leaves.

A repeating field on cream: rows of the cintamani motif, three blue balls each marked with a pale crescent above two red wavy lines, alternating with running gold cloud bands that curl at every crest.

Cloud BandsNo. 91

A coral, cream and gold lotus seen from the front, rising on a slender stem between two long, curving serrated saz leaves in green, with small white blossoms on fine stems, on deep teal.

Saz Leaf and LotusNo. 92

Three arched niches on saffron, each holding one plant: a red pomegranate split to show its seeds, a tall cypress with a flowering vine wound round it, and a slender red tulip, each labelled.

Garden MotifsNo. 93

A large boteh on rose, its teardrop outline banded in gold, blue with cream beads, cream and red around a pale centre with a small gold flower, shown as a facing pair in wider shapes and one above another in the tall ones.

The corner of a carpet: a narrow outer guard stripe, a wide brown main border of rosettes and green cartouches on a scrolling vine, a narrow inner guard and the start of a blue field, with a rosette set square in the corner and each part labelled.

Border AnatomyNo. 95

Six cartouche shapes in gold on aubergine, each named: lobed, ogival, oval, quatrefoil, polylobed and pointed oval, alternately with dark and cream grounds and filled with a flower and split leaves.

Cartouche FormsNo. 96

A brass astrolabe on lapis: a throne and ring at the top, a degree scale round the rim, a plate of altitude circles and tropics, the openwork star map with its offset ecliptic ring and flame-shaped star pointers, and a straight rule across the face. Tall shapes show the cord it hangs from.

AstrolabeNo. 97

A ring of thirty small moons on ink, from the thin crescent of day one through full moon to the last crescent, with day thirty shown as a dashed circle. Inside, the twelve hijri months in Arabic around a gold crescent, with Ramadan in gold. In tall and wide shapes the months are listed beside the ring.

The Lunar MonthNo. 98

Two star charts on ink with faint field stars. Orion and Taurus show Betelgeuse, Rigel, Saiph, the three belt stars, Aldebaran and the Pleiades; the Summer Triangle shows Vega, Altair, Deneb and Sadr. Each named star is labelled in English and in its Arabic original.

Arabic Star NamesNo. 99

A pale stone horizontal sundial with north at the top: hour lines in blue, the curves traced by the shadow's tip at the winter and summer solstices and the straight equinox line, the noon line, the asr curve in red and a gold arrow pointing to Mecca. Tall shapes add a compass rose with the qibla needle.

Qibla and SundialNo. 100

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