Golestān Palace is the remnant of the historic citadel of Tehran, which dates back to the Safavid period, and the Zandiyeh and Fatḥ-Ali Shah Qajar. But because of extensive repairs by Nasser al-Din Shah in 1905, most of the buildings in this complex are regarded to be from the Nasseri era. Golestān Palace was the residence of the Qajar kings and the country’s administrative heart whose architectural decorations had formed in connection with traditional cultural concepts, as well as a mixture of traditional and western and fully western concepts. To decorate the palaces and government buildings in this era, some religious, national and traditional concepts, such as common tales, were used and building pictorial backgrounds using natural scenery, structures, depicting animals, plants, and inanimate objects became popular. Painting fruit was a new concept which appeared in the Haft Rang [seven colour] tiles used on the outside walls of the Golestān Palace. These tiles were painted with depictions of bunches of flowers, and fruit such as pomegranates, grapes, cucumbers, Persian melons, apples, pears, and watermelons. Given the importance of food among Iranians, the fruit paintings can be considered alongside the cultural and social changes during the Qajar era which have been reflected in travelogues and photographs remaining of that time; foreign tourists have mentioned the welcoming of guests by various types of food and fruit and have described the Iranian food spreads and their culinary traditions. The main question of this research is to do with the method of depicting fruit in the tiles of the Golestān Palace and the general aim of this article is understanding how the cultural evolution and changes in artistic depictions have been reflected in the Qajar era.  This research considers raw food to be a cultural element, and uses a descriptive-analytical approach, gathering information from libraries, making use of photographs, and travelogues related to the Qajar era. The history of depicting fruit in Iranian Architectural ornamentation is considered to go back to the Afshar era and the Indian masons which has remained as expanded decorative paintings. In the painted tiles of the Qajar era, fruit types appeared which have never been used as ornamentation before. For example, apart from the common fruit, vegetables and fruit such as cherries, sour-cherries, and corn were painted on the tiles of the Golestān Palace. The corn with large yellow kernels, and some red cherries have been depicted alongside other fruit. What is remarkable about the depiction of the fruit, is the ornamental arrangement of the fruit with leaves and flowers; most of the fruit are seen as individual or bunches in arrangements that includes a framework of leaves and flowers. The frames are not uniform and sometimes are accompanied by architectural elements such as pillars or sometimes with green vines and trestles of greenery. The fruit are depicted freely using different colour shading, colour bordering using lines, and cross hatching which has been copied form imported post cards and magazine pictures. Plants and fruit have had a legendary, symbolic and ritualistic place in the Iranian psyche since the ancient times; but, in the Qajar era, they have appeared in a realistic style and as one of the main concepts of depictions, rivalling the European still life paintings. The findings in this research show that, although the fruits depictions in the Golestān Palace are a continuation of the previous eras, but the cultural evolution of the Qajar era has had an effect on them and has changed a lot in relation to the Iranian culinary culture.

Seyedun or Seyedun Ali Naghia tomb is located in Nebadan district of Abarghu. This clay monument is a tall dome chamber on the exterior cover of whose dome there are bricks as well as blue and azure tiles. The interior dado is also covered by tiles and the underneath surfaces are decorated with clay Muqarnas, inscriptions and slight painting ornaments. A vast part of the dome cover crumpled probably in 1330sSH (1950s AD) and was renovated some decades later. This building is a mosque attributed to 9th century (AH) called masjid-hosseiniyeh or hosseiniyeh of Nebadan. A small part of it which is part of the attached installations has just remained. It has had an altar whose direction confirmed to the skew Qibla of the congregational mosque and masjidhosseiniyeh of Abarghu. No dated inscription or including the founder name one can be found there. Seyedun Ali Naghia has been briefly inspected in the previous references and is attributed to 8th century (AH) based on Donald Wilber and Godard’s dating while it has been attributed to 6th- 8th centuries (AH) in the national registration file. In this research we try to date the tomb through investigating related documents, its structure and also the comparative inspection conducted during the preparation period of the renovation plan. In addition, we look for the answer to the question whether it was constructed in one single era and when it was built. Its initial function is another issue to be investigated. The dado tiles order, the way of drawing and embellishing Kufic handwriting of the inscriptions and the way of creating squinches in this monument to a great extent resemble 8th century monuments of Yazd and Isfahan. Moreover, the content of the verses written on the inscriptions which alludes to the burial use of them, in addition to above-mentioned traits, arouse the strong possibility of this monument being built as a tomb and for burial purposes. Both the structure and the ornaments are very similar to the damaged tomb of Hasan Ebn-Keikhosro (with an inscription dated 707-718 AH). Since the construction date of that tomb is known, it is likely that Seyedun Ali Naghia was also built in the first quarter of 8th century; the era during which king Mobarez Al-Din could overcome Yazd and Meibod that led to the reign of Mozaffarian dynasty to start. In addition, based on its similarities to 8th century monuments like Seyedun Golsorkhi and Hasan Ebn-Keikhosro domes and through investigating Jame’ Al-kheirat endowment in which Nebadan desert of Abarghu has been mentioned, we conceive that the mentioned buildings were all made in one single era with the fund of a famous figure who might belong to Seyed Rokn Al-Din family. Through investigating the structure of Seyedun Ali Naghia no trace of two different eras was found which leads us to the strong possibility that all of them were constructed in one single era. The content of the inscriptions read in this research for the first time, are Quran-related. We can foresee that more evidences particularly of the original forms of dome covers ornaments would be obtained through future renovations which might in turn reveal other aspects of the monument history.