Pieces of a Puzzle: Classical Persian Carpet Fragments
Classical Persian carpets of the 16th and 17th
centuries have long been appreciated for their spectacular beauty
and fine craftsmanship, although their development and classification
have been poorly understood. Only in recent decades, as scholars
began to analyze specific types of classical Persian rugs, have
the pieces of the puzzle begun to fall into place. This exhibition
presents nine examples of one of these types, named after the
historic Persian province of Khorasan. This is the first exhibition
to focus on classical Khorasan carpets.
The three principal surviving fragments of one spectacular 16th-century Khorasan rug are reunited in this exhibition from three different collections. These pieces also fit together like a puzzle, allowing us to glimpse the grand scale of the original carpet. Despite their fragmentary nature, the Khorasan carpets on view retain their delicate beauty and can reveal much about the complete rugs and about classical Persian carpets as a whole.
Daniel Walker
Exhibition Curator and Textile Museum Director
This website is made possible through the
generosity of Jeremy and Hannelore Grantham.
The exhibition was on view at The Textile
Museum from September 1, 2006 to January 7, 2007.
That presentation was made possible in part
by:
Persepolis Foundation
Patti Cadby Birch
Alavi Foundation
For more information, read Daniel Walker's
article "Carpets of Khorasan" in HALI magazine,
no. 149, November-December 2006.
All carpet structural analyses by D. Walker.