Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/577

Rh Bk. I. Cfl. V. TURKESTAN". 661 TiTRKESTAN. The progress of the Russians in Northern Asia has recently opened up whole regions that hitherto have been hidden from the liglit of European research, and the beautiful paintings of Verestchagin liave rendered us familiar with the splendor of the capital of Timour the Lame. Unfortunately, however, no photographs have yet been pub- lished of Samarcand, and no plans of the buildings of that far-famed city. We have not seen any such detailed descriptions as would 994. Pavilion in the Khan's Palace at Khiva. ("From a View in "Tiie Graphic") enable us to speak with anything like certainty of their affinities or difference with other buildings of the same age. All that can be said with certainty is that the great mosque and tomb of its founder at Samarcand are erected in the same style as the mosque at Tabreez (Woodcut No. 986), and the tomb at Sultanieh (Woodcut No. 989), and other buildings in Persia and Armenia, with only such slight differences as miglit be expected from their more northern locality. The whole facade of the mosque, together with minarets and domes, is covered with painted tiles — so far as can be ascertained — of extreme beauty of design, and the tomb is surrounded by screens of marble trellis-work very similar to what we find afterwards in the works of Timour's descendants at Agra and Delhi. The great interest, in fact, that attaches to these buildings arises not so much from their own intrinsic value as because they form a connecting link between tiie style of Persia and that of the Great Mogul dynasty in India, and VOL. II. — 36