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Parent Category: Technical Articles from Journal Back Copies

Category: Technical Articles 2009

Gillie Hoyte Byrom

Isfahan is one of the great cities of the Islamic world and a centre for enamel painting. Here amongst a labyrinthine bazaar is a multiplicity of arts, crafts and market stalls where everyone is industriously creating and selling their wares. The sound of hammer on metal resonates around the arched thoroughfares surrounding Imam Square.

A few years ago I had been contacted by an Iranian enamel portrait artist, who found my website and was keen to correspond. Accompanied by two intrepid and well-travelled enamellers – Dorothy Cockrell and Janet Notman - I determined to visit Iran and make a survey of enamel painting there.

Three months ahead of the June elections and while Barrack Obama was in Presidential honeymoon, we found many artisans friendly and welcoming, eager to demonstrate the techniques they employ and spontaneously offering us tea sweetened with saffron flavoured sugar crystals. The mood then was one of optimism for the future. Today, with an unstable political situation we are concerned to know how these people fare now. The names of the Iranians we met have not been revealed to protect their security.

Having started in Tehran, we flew to Shiraz to begin our winding journey across the high salt deserts of old Persia to Yazd, said to be the oldest city in the world and onward to Isfahan.

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