The Paris of Mariano Fortuny’s childhood was filled with excitement and intrigue, as vivid depictions of PERSEPOLIS’s ancient city were first published in Voyages en Perse de MM. Eugene Flanin peintre et Pascal Coste architecte, including over 350 revolutionary illustrations of the ruinous city. PERSEPOLIS, the ceremonial capital of the ancient Persian empire built by Darius the Great, continued to captivate Mariano Fortuny’s imagination years later, inspiring this whimsical and spirited pattern filled with sensual Persian floral, leaf, and pomegranate motifs.