Carpet, wool knotted pile on wool and cotton foundation, dense pattern of offset botehs on red ground, possibly Mashhad, Khurasan, Iran, 1870-1875

Carpet Design: Field: red ground with 17½ bands of 8 and one part botehs; the rest of the space is filled with small flowers.
Main Border: white ground with pregnant boteh and child, as in the field but larger and with an infilling of flowers.
No inner border.
Outer Border: dark blue ground with small flowers.
NOTE: it was the clear aim of the designer to get a dense, fluid linear design - so the technique was dictated by the design, not the other way round, hence the use of sinuous weft only after 5 rows of knots and the variable number of warp threads around which knots are tied.
Catalogue Date: 21 July 1999

Given by His Majesty Nasir al-Din Shah

In 1877, Nasruddin Shah, the Qajar ruler of Iran, approved a donation of contemporary textiles and carpets to the South Kensington Museum. Organised via Robert Murdoch Smith and Qajar minister Emin al-Mulk, the donation consisted of 14 carpets and 60 other examples of textiles, and was directly intended to advertise Iran's textile industry to British consumers. The accompanying letter to the Museum's Lords of Committee outlined the strategy "We have no doubt whatever that the English Nation has always viewed our manufactures in a kind and friendly manner; and although the Persian Arts have not attained a high rank, nevertheless they have been viewed with a friendly eye and examined in a partial spirit. Such being the case, H.I.M. the Shah resolved that a small quantity of the produce of this country - manufactures by Persian workmen of the present day - should be presented to the said Museum."

In this carpet there is a riot of botehs: each large boteh contains three smaller ones and this combination is sometimes charmingly referred to as a 'pregnant' boteh. This and other carpets given to the Museum by the Shah, were chosen by his ministers to represent the very best being produced in Iran in 1876.

836-1877