Glass & Ceramics Museum

Lonely Planet review

The impressive Glass & Ceramics Museum is housed in a beautiful Qajar-era building. Built as a private residence for a prominent Persian family, it later housed the Egyptian embassy and was converted into a museum in 1976.

The building marks a move away from purely Persian traditions, successfully blending features of both Eastern and Western styles. The graceful wooden staircase and the classical stucco mouldings on the walls and ceilings are particularly delightful, and there are many delicate carvings and other decorations.

The museum itself is probably the best-designed in Iran. It has hundreds of exhibits, mainly from Neishabur, Kashan, Rey and Gorgan, dating from the 2nd millennium BC. They're organised chronologically into galleries, with explanations of the periods in English, plus other relevant details such as the Persian glass-blowing tradition. The pieces are all lovingly displayed and it's easy to spend an hour or more reading and looking your way through the museum. The ground floor shop sells an English guidebook to the museum.