The Development History of Persian Carpet

Persian carpets with light and bright colors are suitable for the modern minimalist style of home decoration.

The Iran Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo shows the brilliant ancient Persian Art and achievement. Entering the city full of architectures with Islamic style, in addition to the Abbas pattern twining vines on the translucent dome make people dazzling, the second floor gallery displays a stack of colorful Persian carpet are quite attracting, and the price on the label also make people suddenly speechless. The most expensive tapestry is inlaid in the frame with the price of 3800000 yuan, and its size is only 22 × 17cm. According to the introduction, this silk tapestry is made of pure silk and craftsmen spend 20 years and use the magnifying to make the fine woven, and per square centimeter area is weaving into 1200 knots.

Hand knitting is the most basic requirement of pure handmade Persian carpet. As the part of the overall structure of the carpet, fringes of the handmade carpet are a natural extension of the warp beam. The number of knot yarn per unit area is the main standard to measure the quality of the carpet, the more the number of knots, the more fine pattern on the carpet . According to statistics, the lowest density of Iran carpet is generally in the 30 knots per 10 cm, ca. 90000 knots per square meters. The maximum can reach l00 million knots per square metres.

Emphasis on hand woven carpet requires great patience to finish. Although the carpet production process has been developed to the industrialized mass production stage, but the production of Persian carpets still need some skilled craftsmen for months or even years of painstaking work. It is said that to weave a handmade carpet , professional weavers need to study weaving a carpet start from the age of seven or eight years, until marriage age to master the skills. Because of the emphasis on hand weaving, so it takes 14 to 18 months to complete a piece of traditional Persian carpet. Nevertheless, statistical data shows, Iran handmade carpet industry has 1200000 employed population in 2008 , and its export value reached $420000000, occupying 30% of the world carpet market share.

Persian carpets with dark and thick color are suitable for high-end European style of home decoration.

All regions of the world national traditional handmade carpet of concentrated in East Asia, Central Asia and countries in the junction area of European and Asian . In the fourth Century BC in ancient Egypt, the kingdom of Babylon engraving already reflects tabby woven carpet. Since the North American Indian tribes retained the hand woven tabby carpets, which are mostly abstract geometrical patterns. The earliest extant tufted unearthed carpet is Paz rake carpet pieces unearthed in the side of Russian, the north slope of Altai Mountains, Central Asia, produced in the fourth Century bc.

The ancient Persian proverb says: Isfahan is half a world. In the Persian carpet industry peak period, the 15 to 16 Century, King Abbas of the Persian Safavid Dynasty move his palace to Isfahan City. The  king loves hand woven arts, and raises the carpet weaving art to a hitherto unknown height. He sent skilled weavers to go to Italy to study art, and integrate European culture into Persian culture. Now preserved fine carpet in Europe and North America's most famous museum, was completed in 1586 ~ 1628 of his ruling period. From then on, Isfahan city has become the holy land of the best Persian handmade carpet. The famous Sha Habas carpet pattern is named after King Abbas .

At that time, almost all the world's nobility were shock by the excellent quality of the Persian carpet, and having such a carpet was regarded as a great honor, then, from the Persian palace to the European royalty, the noble figure of Persian carpets can be seen in everywhere of the papal. Typical Abbas carpet patterns is made of flowers, sunflower, Abbas palm leaves, curly leaves and vines consisting of the main pattern, using the Kolk wool (one of the best wool of the world) to weave in the warp and woof of silk. Today, Isfahan carpet has become a byword for the best Persian carpet.

An example of decorating the living room with Persian carpet.

Iran people think that a very important factor to define whether a carpet is beautiful or not is the collocation of color. Most Persian rugs use local natural pigments to dye, and this unique color is an important factor to reflect the value of the Persian carpet. More colors are more valuable. Beginning from the mid Nineteenth Century, Western weaving and methods and dyeing mechanization, dyeing process and hand knitting of Persia carpet make such that no two Persian carpets are exactly the same, and these features make the Persian carpet has particular charming that other ordinary carpets cannot reach, which makes it valuable for collection and investment, thus some people regard it as property equal to cash, which can circulate like gold, jewelry and jade.

In the west, the Persian carpets started to become famous decoration items from the middle ages, and it seems embodying the Westerners' concern on foreign things in many ways, especially concern on practical foreign things. It entered the mainstream Western culture circle from the precious commodity on a typical exotic, finally, as generalized Orientalism by Edward said, Persian carpets become a part of European civilization and culture, but also become a typical code that most represent the oriental art and design system full of heterogeneous colors.