An all-over floral composition in which sprays of flowers, rosettes and leafy branches, often arranged in symmetrical pairs, are spread across the field, typically without a central medallion to hold the eye. The Persian word afshan means “scattered” or “sprinkled”. The open, airy layout can be seen, for example, on the pale ivory ground of some Sarouk rugs.
A type of Sarouk woven mainly in the 1920s and 1930s, with patterns and colors adapted to what international buyers, above all in the United States, appreciated, and very popular there. It is also known as Mohajeran Sarouk. Its floral design later served as a model for newer Malayer and Mehraban rugs.
Rugs from Arak, a city in central Iran formerly called Sultanabad, and the villages around it, a weaving region that grew in the Qajar era when exports of Persian rugs to Europe and America thrived. Rug texts also use the city as a reference point: the town of Sarouk lies about 50 km (31 miles) to its north, and the Malayer villages lie between Arak and Hamadan. Older pieces of the area are still sold under the old name Sultanabad.
A teardrop-shaped motif with a curved upper tip, ubiquitous in Persian and Kashmiri weaving for centuries. The Persian word is glossed as “budding flower or plant,” and the motif stands for growth and regeneration; it is also read as a cypress that bends in the wind but rarely breaks, a flame, a seed, a pine cone or a stylized almond. When Scottish mills began imitating Kashmir shawls in the 19th century, the boteh became known in the West as “paisley,” after the town of Paisley. In rugs it usually repeats throughout the field, notably in Tabriz, Sarouk, Kerman, Mashhad and Malayer pieces.
A Persian rug made in a city, often inside a workshop, one of the three families (city, village, tribal) into which Persian rugs are commonly sorted. Weavers usually follow a designer's drawn plan under experienced or master weavers, and a workshop can buy wool in bulk and color it all at once, so standards are stricter than in memory-based village and tribal weaving. City rugs generally reach the highest knot densities and the widest range of sizes, colors and designs, most often florals (Tabriz, Kashan, Isfahan, Kerman, Nain, Mashhad, Sarouk). Workshop origin usually signals higher quality, but not every workshop rug is signed.
Antique Persian carpets from the Ferahan (also spelled Farahan or Feraghan) plain in central Iran, known for all-over Herati patterns and subtle color palettes. These 19th-century rugs typically feature a diamond lattice of small floral motifs, often in navy blue, rust red and ivory, and are prized for their fine weave and balanced, restrained compositions. In today's trade the name is also used for newly made Pakistani workshop rugs of the Peshawar (Chobi) type, woven from hand-spun wool and vegetable dyes in subdued colors and mostly Persian-inspired all-over designs, and sometimes for Sarouk rugs from the same region; such rugs are not antique Ferahan carpets.
One of the three principal design families of Persian rugs, alongside geometric and Herati: patterns of flowers, leaves and vines drawn in flowing curves. It dominates city and workshop rugs such as Tabriz, Kashan, Kerman, Sarouk, Nain and Isfahan, where high knot density allows fine detail, and it typically draws on forms such as the Shah Abbasi design and rosettes. Floral motifs, though known to weavers earlier, are said to have become common in Persian rugs from the 16th century. Floral rugs come in two layouts: with a central medallion, where flowers and branches are smaller, or allover, with larger flowers.
A floral rug built around one central medallion, either a single large flower or a cluster of small blooms joined into one shape, often echoed by smaller medallions above, below and beside it. The medallion is traditionally said to stand for the sacred lotus. Because it takes up field space, the flowers and branches are smaller and thinner than in allover floral rugs. The design is typical of Tabriz, Kerman, Sarouk and Kashan, and its strong center makes it a natural focal point of a room.
A layout in which the field is divided into a grid of framed, mostly square panels, each holding its own imagined garden of flowers, plants, trees and birds, usually on a single background color of its own. Scenes vary, from cypress trees and villas to lakes, deer in a forest or a tree of life, and in some rugs the panels carry the four seasons. Weavers treat each panel as a window onto paradise and a sign of hope for a bright future. Best known from Bakhtiari rugs, it is also woven in Tabriz, Sarouk, Kashmar, Kerman and Qum. The Persian name Kheshti comes from khesht (“brick”), after the square frames.
A narrow band running alongside the wide main border of a rug, framing it and completing the boundary around the field much as a frame surrounds a painting; it is also called a secondary border. Many Sarouk rugs, for example, wrap a much thinner secondary border around the primary one, and wide floral borders, as on some Tabriz and Kashan rugs, are often edged by narrow guards. The broad main border and its slim guards together form a hierarchy of bands that sets off the design.
A classic Persian design built on a diamond repeated across the field, with a small flower or leaves inside each diamond and curved leaves at its sides; the leaves are read as stylized fish, said to circle a lotus. The name comes from Herat, the city in Afghanistan where the design is said to originate; it is also called the fish design, and Mahi means “fish” in Persian. It is one of the three main design families, woven as an allover pattern or around a central medallion with diamonds inside and outside it, and it sometimes appears as a thin border. It is common in Tabriz, Sarouk, Mashhad, Moud, Bijar, Hamadan, Abadeh, Zanjan, Kerman and Kashan rugs.
The tallest pile tier in one dealer's four-tier scheme, about 1/2 to 5/8 in (12.7 to 15.9 mm) measured from the back of the rug to the top of the pile. It feels cushioned and cozy underfoot and usually comes with larger, bolder patterns, because rugs of lower knot density need no close trimming to look sharp. Together with medium pile it is recommended for busy living rooms, hallways, entryways and heavy furniture, but it needs more clearance under doors and takes longer to dry in damp rooms. Heriz, Mashhad, Sarouk, Bijar, Zanjan and Gabbeh rugs typically have it.
A very large government-owned Iranian rug producer, known by the initials ICC and in the United States as the Iranian Rug Company, whose roots reach back to 1934. It runs a network of workshops in about 44 cities, including Tabriz, Hamadan and Sarouk, with some 25,000 workers, and turns out roughly 50,000 square meters (about 540,000 square feet) of rugs a year. It supplies wool and materials and lends money for replacing old looms. Dyeing and weaving are tightly controlled, and even a small flaw has to be unpicked and redone, so its signature signals consistent, high quality whichever town the rug comes from.
A fine, soft grade of wool taken from the neck and inner fleece layer of young sheep, often from the first shearing. Oily with natural lanolin, it feels soft and resilient and gives colors extra shine. It is used for the pile of many fine city rugs from Isfahan, Kerman, Qum, Tabriz, and Mashad, and older antique Sarouks cut to a short pile use it too. Also spelled cork or kurk wool.
A size band above medium, running from about 5 x 8 ft (152 x 244 cm) through 6 x 9, 7 x 10 and 8 x 10 up to about 8 x 11 ft (244 x 335 cm); from 9 x 12 ft (2.7 x 3.7 m) a rug counts as oversized. It suits a small apartment living room (5 x 8 to 6 x 9), a medium living room (7 x 10 to 8 x 11) or a home office, where a 5 x 8 or 6 x 9 sits in front of the desk. City Persian types such as Tabriz, Sarouk and Kashan are made in this size, while tribal rugs such as Baluchi and Qashqai are seldom woven this large. Dealers' size labels vary, so the dimensions matter more than the name.
Village rugs from the town of Malayer and neighboring villages between Arak and Hamadan, usually dated to about the 19th century and woven on an old trade route that brought in outside designs. A cotton foundation, wool pile and symmetrical Turkish knot give a finer weave than most village rugs, with the pile clipped fairly low to show detail. Diamond or hexagonal medallions, small white dots in the border ringing the medallion and a rope-like loop effect in the rug's own border are typical marks. The south-eastern, Sarouk-like style is double-wefted and thicker, with floral medallions or Tree of Life designs; the north-western, Hamadan-like style is single-wefted, geometric and lighter in color. Small rugs and runners predominate, mostly on navy, deep red or cream grounds.
A large motif at the center of a rug's field, around which the rest of the design is organized; the large central medallion is said to have been introduced in the Safavid era (16th-17th centuries). Floral medallions, typical of city rugs such as Tabriz, Kashan and Sarouk, are often read as a lotus blossom, and the motif has also been read as mirroring the interior dome of a mosque; geometric ones, often hexagonal or diamond-shaped, mark village and tribal rugs such as Heriz and Zanjan. A medallion may stand alone, come with four corner pieces, be flanked by smaller medallions above and below, or repeat down a runner. Rugs with no central motif are called allover. In a well-made rug the medallion sits at the center and the corners mirror one another, as closely as handwork allows.
Village rugs from the Mehraban district, a cluster of villages in the north of the Hamadan region beside Kurdish Iran, so Kurdish styles appear. They are single-wefted rugs on cotton, knotted with the symmetrical (Turkish) knot, with a medium pile of fine, soft, lustrous, oily wool, on dark blue, dark red, cream, camel-hair or peach fields. Older pieces are geometric, with repeating medallions and bird or animal motifs, largely made for the weavers' own use; newer ones follow American Sarouk florals. The district is known for runners, typically 2.5 to 3 ft (76-91 cm) wide and 6 to 20 ft (1.8-6.1 m) long. It is not the Meraban of East Azerbaijan, which weaves Heriz-style rugs.
A layout in which most of the field is left open, usually one plain ground color with only a few flowers in curving lines and sometimes a medallion. It comes in three forms: a single central medallion, two or more repeating medallions, or an allover scatter of motifs with generous space between them. The composition is said to echo the cover of a Quran and is found mainly in city-style Persian rugs such as Tabriz, Kashan, Sarouk, Hamadan, and Kerman, and also in Bijar rugs. With so little pattern to hide behind, inconsistencies in the wool or dyeing show plainly.
The largest standard size class of hand-knotted rugs, starting at about 9 x 12 ft (2.7 x 3.7 m) and running through 10 x 13, 10 x 14 and 12 x 16 ft up to about 14 x 22 ft (4.3 x 6.7 m); some size charts start the class above roughly 10 x 14 ft (3 x 4.3 m). Rugs this large suit big living rooms, dining rooms and bedrooms and come mostly from city-workshop Persian and Pakistani weaving, with some Heriz and Bakhtiari pieces and few from tribal weavers such as the Qashqai or Baluch. Workshops such as those of Sarouk also weave palace sizes beyond 12 x 18 ft on commission. Their weight usually holds them without a pad, though a pad helps under heavy furniture or in humid rooms.
An exceptionally large carpet woven for a grand formal room, in special sizes beyond the standard ranges, roughly from 12 x 18 ft (3.7 x 5.5 m) upward. Such sizes are often made to order, and workshops with access to very large looms and ample resources, as in Sarouk weaving, can produce them. A 13 x 20 ft (4.0 x 6.1 m) Kashan with a medallion-and-corner layout is an example of the scale. Dealers set the threshold differently, so the figure is approximate.
A rug woven as a picture, with landscape scenery, scenes from history or mythology, biblical or other stories, and human figures in place of a repeating ornament, comparable in composition to traditional art. Master weavers in city workshops make them, chiefly in Tabriz, which is known for a wide variety of pictorial designs, and also in Kashan, Isfahan, and Sarouk. Faces and floral areas are often woven at a higher knot density than the rest of the rug, so the knot count is best averaged over two or three areas.
A long, narrow rug for hallways, entryways, staircases and kitchens, or placed in twos and threes beside a bed. Standard runners are about 2 to 3 ft (60-90 cm) wide and wider ones 3 to 4 ft (90-120 cm), with lengths from about 6 ft (1.8 m) to around 40 ft (12 m); Hamadan and Karaja are known for the longest. Heriz, Azerbaijan and Hamadan runners typically come wide, while wide Tabriz, Sarouk and Karaja runners are mostly older pieces. In a hallway, leave about 12-18 inches (30-45 cm) of floor at each end. Because a single medallion looks lost on so long a field, geometric village runners often repeat a medallion, varying its inner pattern or color between repeats; Karaja alternates two distinct medallions.
Popular, durable Persian city rugs from Sarouk, a town in central Iran about 50 km (31 miles) north of Arak, prominent from the 19th century and exported to Europe and America. A cotton foundation carries a medium-to-thick wool pile, at times with silk highlights, usually tied with the Persian knot (some older pieces use the Turkish knot) at medium-to-high density of up to about 320 knots per square inch (roughly 50 per cm²). Floral, medallion and allover designs, with some Herati, boteh and pictorial patterns, appear on beige, ivory, cream, navy or red fields, the red leaning toward orange or rust, usually with a thin secondary border. American Sarouks, woven mainly in the 1920s and 1930s, adapted designs and colors to U.S. taste, and many were re-dyed to a preferred rose red.
Silk yarn knotted into selected parts of an otherwise wool pile, such as flowers, animals and other pattern details, so those areas shimmer against the wool and the design gains vibrancy and depth. Because silk is finer than wool, it also permits a higher knot density. The device is a hallmark of Nain rugs, where blue or ivory silk picks out different areas of the design, and it is common in Tabriz and some Sarouk rugs. Stains are harder to remove from silk than from wool, so a pile of pure wool is the better choice for a dining room.
A layout of vases holding flowers, spread across the rug, often with one large vase at the center surrounded by smaller ones around the medallion, the arrangement then repeated over the whole field. In Persian tradition the flowering vase stands for growth and opportunity, and it is also read as a symbol of abundance and paradise. The design is typical of Kashmar rugs and is also found in Bakhtiari, Tabriz, Sarouk, Qum and Kashan rugs; in Kashmar and Kashan rugs vases can also appear in the border.