Alhambra Nasrid palaces ornate courtyards
— the patience that water has.
Not only on a wall.
Alhambra Nasrid palaces ornate courtyards, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
“The hill above Granada, where the last Nasrid emirs built courtyards out of running water and carved stucco. The Court of the Lions still holds twelve marble beasts around a central basin. The Sierra Nevada sits behind it all, snow-capped half the year. People go quiet inside the Hall of the Two Sisters and stand a long time looking up.
The place, in three passes.
The Alhambra crowns the Sabika hill above Granada, in Andalusia. The Nasrid Palaces are the surviving residential and ceremonial heart of the complex, built between roughly 1238 and 1492 by the last Muslim dynasty on the Iberian Peninsula. UNESCO inscribed the site on the World Heritage List in 1984. The three palaces (Mexuar, Comares, Lions) are reached through the Puerta de la Justicia, and timed entry tickets sell out weeks in advance. Visitors enter from the lower city by the Cuesta de Gomérez, with the Sierra Nevada rising to the southeast.
The Nasrid carvers worked in stucco, cedar, and marble. The columns of the Court of the Lions number 124, slender enough to feel impossible, and the central fountain is fed by a hydraulic system that has run, with restoration, since the fourteenth century, supported by twelve marble lions whose carving predates much of the surrounding palace. Arabic inscriptions cover nearly every wall surface. Many repeat the phrase Wa la ghalib illa Allah, There is no victor but God, the Nasrid dynastic motto, in flowing Andalusi cursive script.
The Alhambra receives around 2.7 million visitors per year, making it one of the most-visited monuments in Spain. The Nasrid Palaces require a timed entry slot purchased in advance through the official Patronato. Photography without flash is allowed inside. The full complex, with the Alcazaba fortress and the Generalife gardens, takes three to four hours on foot. Early morning slots before the coach groups arrive, or the last entry of the day in summer, give the courtyards their quietest light and the cleanest reflections in the Court of the Myrtles pool.
