Middle East, Carpet. Carpet, wool knotted pile on cotton warp and wool and silk weft, 'Vase Carpet' design on red ground, Kirman, Safavid Iran, 1600-1700

Carpet Fragment, Vase Carpet, hand knotted woollen pile on cotton warp and woollen and silk weft, Persian, 17th century
Warp: white cotton; Z4S; 32 threads per in/130 per dm; depressed
Weft: carpet sewn onto backboard so difficult to check: wool and silk; spin, ply and twist not known; number of shoots not known but the silk, sinuous weft is used only after approximately 7 rows of knots; 14 knots per inch/58 knots per inch
Pile: wool; 13 colours: dark red, orange, light orange, yellow, dark green, light green, dark blue, blue, light blue, brown, light brown, pink and white; asymmetrical knot tied around two threads and open to the right; 224 knots per sq.in/3770 per sq.dm
Side Finish: cut
End Finish: cut
Design: dark red ground with a main lattice in yellow and blue and secondary lattices, one of which is formed by scrolls with zigzagged-patterned blossoms. There is a vase with a spray of naturalistic flowers in the lower part.
Border: part of a minor border with a white ground and orange, blue and light blue meandering stems, exists along the right hand side of this fragment. It starts part of the way up with a right angle and suggests that the borders did not form parallel lines along the sides of a rectangular carpet. The carept may have been an unusual shape or the borders may have been untypical.

Purchased from F.I. Spielman, 152 Gloucester Terrace, London

The carpet designer can simplify the creative process for himself, but still create something dramatic, by using a lattice to form a network of spaces. He can decorate both the lines and the medallions they enclose by drawing different motifs in each compartment. If he is cunning he can make the structure less obvious by using two or three lattices of different size, superimposed slightly off-set, as in this fragment. A minor border with a white ground and orange, blue and light blue meandering stems starts with a right angle part of the way up the right hand side; this suggests that the borders did not form parallel lines along the sides of a rectangular carpet and that this carpet might have been an unusual shape. Note also the blue vase in the lower right hand corner.

T.57-1929