A Study for the Origin of a Carpet in a Private Collection

Abstract

There are three main problems in carpet collections, carpet markets or area searches, namely, making a true technical analysis, defining the motifs and designs and identifying the group that the carpet belongs to. After a carpet was found in a collector's house and the technical analysis was made, we understood that it was an Iranian "garden" design carpet. According to the written documents, the oldest Iranian "garden" design carpets were dated back the 16th century. But there is not sample of such 16th century carpets today. Since only the 18th and 19th century samples can be found, such a carpet is highly special. These gardens in Iran are called as the chahar bagh (four gardens). The surface composition plans of these carpets are different from the classical Iran carpets. The "Garden" design carpets show both ancient garden designs and Islamic garden ideas (Heaven Garden); and in these sense they are very important for the researchers.