A stylized fan- or palm-leaf-shaped flower motif whose petals or leaves spread from a single base. It is repeated in the fields and borders of city rugs such as Kashan and Tabriz, usually alongside arabesque scrolls, rosettes, and floral sprays. In Sultanabad rugs the palmettes are drawn oversized and set among angular vine scrolls in an allover pattern.
A round, flower-like ornament in which petals radiate evenly from a center, like a blossom seen from above. From about the 16th century, as floral design entered Persian rugs, weavers began placing a rosette at the center of the field, which produced the central medallion of floral city rugs, as in the circular rosette medallion with scrolling lines on a round Shah Abbasi Tabriz. On Abadeh rugs a small rosette worked in navy, red or cream marks the center of the medallion, one way to tell the type apart. Rosettes also repeat along borders, as in Tabriz and Bakhtiari rugs, and among the vines and palmettes of Sultanabad rugs.
Antique Persian carpets from Sultanabad, the former name of the Arak region of Iran, a newer weaving center that flourished under the Qajars in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and supplied European and American buyers. Their typical layout is an allover field of oversized palmettes, lotus blossoms, floral sprays and angular vines, recalling the Shah Abbasi pattern in a rustic village manner rather than the precise curvilinear drawing of city rugs. Indigo or midnight blue with rust or brick red, gold and olive is a classic palette. Because Sultanabad no longer exists under that name, antique examples are scarce and command higher prices.