Surprise me

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.
Room
Size
View

The Pattern Atlas

Pishtaq

No. 44 of 100 · free · 300 dpi

What you seeA 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.

What it meansPishtaq is Persian for the monumental frame raised in front of an iwan or a gateway. Timurid and Safavid builders made it the face of a building, often crowning it with a pair of minarets.

Where it worksA rich, jewel-toned piece for an entrance, a hallway or a living room.

Pin it
2:3 · 7200 × 10800 px4×6 · 8×12 · 12×18 · 16×24 · 20×30 · 24×36 in
3:4 · 5400 × 7200 px6×8 · 9×12 · 12×16 · 18×24 in
4:5 · 7200 × 9000 px4×5 · 8×10 · 16×20 · 24×30 in
11:14 · 3300 × 4200 px11×14 in
A-series · 7023 × 9933 pxA5 · A4 · A3 · A2 · A1

Everything is one ZIP: every shape and size, the phone wallpaper, the SVGs and a printing guide.

← PreviousNext →

More from The Pattern Atlas

All 100 prints
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.QanatNo. 48
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.MerlonsNo. 51
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

You might also like

A single stylised blossom in lapis, gold, coral and turquoise on a short stem with two curling leaves, set on a plaster ground.HatayiArabesque · No. 15
A framed field of octagons and four-point stars, clay octagons and cobalt stars in one half of the sheet and the colours swapped in the other, the change running straight through a row of octagons.CounterchangeZellige · Colour Field · No. 8
A twelve-point star polygon inside a circle, with the sheet split down the middle into ink on the left and bone on the right and a small solid clay star at the centre.MeridianZellige · Line & Light · No. 7
One line of evenly spaced clay-red dots coils out from the centre of a cream ground, each dot a little larger than the last.CoilDot · No. 12
A tall cypress in a large central diamond, surrounded by a quilt of small tulip diamonds in lime, turquoise and pink.Garden GateDiamond Quilt · No. 49
A large dish seen from above, its rim painted with spiral waves and turquoise rocks, its well holding a bouquet of tulip, carnation, hyacinth and a composite blossom framed by saz leaves, set on a wall of dark blue tiles.The Great DishIznik · No. 5
A planked double door in cobalt stands in a horseshoe arch framed by a chequered tile band and a teal surround; gold studs trace the edge of each leaf and form four round starbursts, with ring knockers at the meeting stile.Studded DoorIslamic Art · No. 16
One boteh drawn as a single unbroken gold line that spirals inward three times, on deep indigo.Gold LinePaisley · No. 4