Eugène-Napoléon Flandin

Eugène-Napoléon Flandin spent years wandering Persia with a sketchbook and a stopwatch, timing how long it took for shadows to stretch across the tile floors of mosques. He’d pause mid-step to catch the exact hue of turquoise tiles in Isfahan’s Friday Mosque before the afternoon sun bleached them bone-white. His watercolors look like quick, sun-bleached Polaroids—you can practically feel the heat rising off the paper. Slide into Gallery Tiles and hunt for Meidan-i-Chah ou Place Royale, Ispahan; the empty square and distant arches make you wonder who just walked out of the frame.