What came to be known in history books as the Shubra Pavilion was for a while at least, nicknamed by French historians as the Nymphaeum. Perhaps it had to do with the prevailing water element, the reflecting pool and the exotic fruit orchards populating the surroundings.

As for the main Shubra Palace gardens that originally covered about 150 acres, these included an elaborate labyrinth crisscrossed by colorful mosaic-laden pebble pathways the work of Greek landscapers hired by Viceroy Mohammed Ali, founder of modern Egypt and later re-landscaped by Gustave Delchevalerie during the reign of Khedive Ismail.

Mistaken in contemporary literature for the Shubra Palace, the Nymphaeum (a.k.a. Central Kiosk or Shubra Pavilion) is a stand-alone piece of architecture created in 1820, in other words 12 years after the construction of the Nile-front Shubra Palace (Haramlik). The haramlik would disapear in the later 1930s when its last occupant driven by nationalistic pique ordered its removal.

As evidenced by a comment he jotted down on the side of one of his blueprints, French architect Pascal Coste was furious at not having been asked to supervise the pavilion's construction especially since he had painstakingly prepared its original layout with elaborate drawings and measurements.

Projet demande de Mehmet Ali Pacha, vice Roi d'Egypte pour l'aggrandissement du jardin de la residence de Choubrah, voulant en faire un petit Versaille. Dresse en 1920 d'apres les programmes comprenant
1. une grand piece d'eau avec fontaines, entouree de galeries avec quatre Pavillions "Diwans"
2. de plusieurs bosquees varies
3. d'un labyrinthe
4. d'un hippodrome pour la course des chevaux est d'une mosquee
Ce projet fut ajourne et pendant mon absence, les architectes turcs et armeniens construisirent seulment la piece d'eau avec ses galeries et les quatre pavillion "diwans" sans une moindre proportion, mais d'une decoration de mauvais gout; dont l'ensemble produit un pittoresque effet.
Janvier 1820

Original design by Pascal Coste of Shubra Pavilion (Typographie de Firmin Didot Freres)

Designed in what is loosely termed "late Ottoman" style, Shubra Pavilion's external architecture is comparable to palaces and summerhouses found in the European part of the empire including Mohammed Ali's hometown of Kavala in eastern Macedonia.

Marveled by all who visited it during his reign, Mohammed Ali's Shubra Pavilion consists of an artificial marble-lined pool with as a whimsical centerpiece, an elaborate octagonal Carrara marble balustrade surrounding a fountain-islet sporting marble statuettes; the whole resting atop 24 raised marble crocodiles spraying water out of their menacing jaws.

Surrounding the pool is a raised wide square gallery fronted by moresque wrap-around veranda with 104 slender load-bearing bronze-based marble colonnades.

Overlooking the pool from the interior of the gallery are 112 low-lying windows with bronze railings.

The gallery built in wood and plaster has four corner salons (diwans or kiosks). As though standing sentinel on these salons are four water-spouting marble lions.

Not unlike the interiors of contemporary palaces built in the Citadel complex including the Bijoux Palace (1814), the Harem Palace built in 1827 (now military museum) and the Daftarkhana (1828), the Shubra palace and its annexes included a melange of styles ranging from faux oriental to gaudy European.

As though to earmark this cultural cross-pollination each of the four Pavilion salons dons a different flavor as dissimilar as the four seasons and as far removed as the four poles.

While one salon has an elaborate wooden ceiling inlaid with gold trimmings and period European decor inlaid with reflecting mirrors and an assortment of symmetrically laid-out French empire furniture, another salon was decorated entirely with trompe-oeil murals featuring bucolic landscapes and aquatic backdrops peppered with mythological figures featured in the distorted or 'grotesque' style. All are closed in by corniches and bowed ceilings some of which include semi-nude paintings attributed to Livornian decorator/builder Pietro Avoscani (1816-91) who is also credited for the original Cairo Opera House which burnt in 1971.

The use of these salons changed over the years whereby a salamlik turned into a billiard room or a visitor's reception quarter was transformed into a dining room.

Equally to be noted on one of the salon ceiling are its serial medallions with what seems to be mythical Greek characters but are actually members of the Mohammed Ali family. Avoscani who worked under several members of the Mohammed Ali dynasty evidenced his gratitude by including his benefactors among the characters he painted at the Shubra Pavillion which is why we find Ibrahim Pasha next to the Medusa and Abbas Pasha and Viceroy Saiid sharing the same ceiling with Jupiter and his wife June or straddling a nude Venus.

Another marvel is the finest French parquet which, 180 years later, remains matchless. And of-course there is the hallmark of most Egyptian palaces-- the oriental diwan.

Besides their elaborate wooden lattices and low lying sofas the Pavilion's diwans also contain the portraits of Viceroys Mohammed Ali and Ibrahim Pasha--indisputable showstoppers for the long list of visiting local and foreign dignitaries last of which was Princess Mary of Great Britain who was entertained at the Shubra Pavilion in the late 1920s by Princess Bahiga Toussoun.

A century earlier French traveler and poet Gerard de Nerval (1808-55) relates his visit to the pavilion in the following terms:

"On visite encore a Choubrah les bains que [Mehemet-Ali] avait construits sur un plan particulier. "C'est, un bassin de marbre blanc, entoure de colonnes d'un gout byzantin, avec une fontaine dans le milieu, dont l'eau s'echappe par des gueules de crocodiles. Toute l'enceinte est eclairee au gaz, et, dans les nuits d'ete, le pacha se fait promener sur le bassin dans une cange doree dont les femmes de son harem agitent les rames. Ces belles dames s'y baignent aussi sous les yeux de leur maitre, mais avec des peignoirs en crepe de soie, le Coran ne permettant pas les nudites".

De Nerval mentions how gas lamps were used to light up the palace. He makes no mention that the royal retreat of Shubra was among the first places in Egypt to entertain electric lighting thanks to British Engineer

In her book Visit to The Holy Land, Egypt, and Italy published in 1852 Ida Pfeifer gives us an idea of the interior of the now extinct Shubra Palace as well as her impressions of the pavilion.

"The park is most lovely; and the rarest plants are here seen flourishing in the open air, in the fulness of bloom and beauty, beside those we are accustomed to see every day. On the whole, however, I was better pleased with the garden at Rodda. The palace, too, is very fine. The ceilings of the rooms are lofty, and richly ornamented with gilding, paintings, and marble. The rooms appropriated to the viceroy's consort are no less magnificent; the ascent to them is by a broad staircase on each side. On the ground- floor is situate the favourite apartment of the autocrat of Cairo, furnished in the style of the reception-halls at Damascus. A fountain of excellent water diffuses a delicious coolness around. In the palace itself we find several large cages for parrots and other beautiful birds. What pleased me most of all was, however, the incomparable kiosk, lying in the garden at some distance from the palace. It is 130 paces long and 100 broad, surrounded by arcades of glorious pillars. This kiosk contains in its interior a large and beautiful fountain; and at the four corners of the building are terraces, from which the water falls in the form of little cataracts, afterwards uniting with the fountain, and shooting upwards in the shape of a mighty pillar. All things around us, the pavilion and the pillars, the walls and the fountain, are alike covered with beautiful marble of a white or light-brown colour; the pavilion is even arranged so that it can be lighted with gas.

According to 19th century historian al-Djabarti one of the earliest visitors to Shubra Palace was none other than Viceroy Mohammed Ali's first wife (buyuk hanem). It was there that the viceroy received her when she joined him in Egypt in 1815. A hundred and some years later the Nilefront palace would disappear as did its last occupant the Princess Aziza Hassan a granddaughter of Khedive Ismail. The pavilion however survived.

Among those who visited Shubra Palace and greatly admired its extraordinary pavilion in 1838 was Prince Maximillian of Bavaria. Heinrich von Mayr portraying an aging viceroy greeting the German prince in full regalia immortalized this scene in one of his orientalist paintings.

During its 180 years the Shubra Pavilion was restored several times. The first such endeavor took place in 1862 when some of the original murals were touched up or painted over by Felix Clement. The French artist had been commissioned to redecorate parts of the palace as well as the Nymphaeum by its then-owner Prince Halim Pasha (1821-94) youngest son of Mohammed Ali. A potential contender to the throne of Egypt he would ultimately be forced into exile by his reigning nephew under the cover of darkness. Halim vacated Shubra Palace through an opening especially made into the perimeter walls enabling him to climb into a special train leaving for Alexandria. From there he was bundled into a boat: destination Istanbul where he eventually died. Which is perhaps why Prince Halim never settled certain outstanding bills regarding the partial restoration of Shubra Palace as evidenced by correspondence inititated by Cav. Carlo Marco Morpurgo and his Mondolfo relation, Jewish craftsmen from Trieste.

Likewise the gardens of Shubra Palace were reorganized in 1870 this time by French landscapers Barillet Deschamps and Gustave Delchevalerie. In a sketch made by the latter he described the pavilion by its then-contemporary Egyptian name "Fasqieh" with the explanation "bain oriental" scribbled next to it. Evidently the pavilion had many names.

Following the death of Khedive Ismail the palace became the property of his third son Prince Hassan who put it up for sale in March 1884 for L.E. 6000. Upon learning of his brother's intention, Khedive Tewfik paid a visit to the Shubra pavilion. "It is too beautiful to belong to anyone else," he was reported to have told his brother who then changed his mind about the sale.

The Shubra Pavilion and its dependencies were listed in 1935 by the Comite de Conservations des Monuments de l'Art Arabe (a predecessor of the Supreme Council for Antiquities). Restoration works on the pavilion were initiated soon after.