A small framed box woven into a rug to hold the name of the master weaver or workshop, often together with the city. It is one of the two usual ways in which Persian city workshops sign a rug; the other is weaving the name directly into the border stripes.
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.
One of three master weavers of Tabriz, with Kurban Dai and Sheikh Safi, who are credited with making possible the export of Tabriz rugs to the West. Weaving in the city goes back to the 1500s, but that export trade did not begin until the 1900s.
A senior weaver who oversees the other weavers of a workshop and keeps its standards of design and weaving high. Master weavers often found a workshop and lend it their name, as with Alabaf and Habibian, and in elite city workshops their names are frequently woven into the rugs as signatures. The most demanding pieces, such as pictorial rugs, are entrusted to them, and the Afghan master Khal Mohammadi, also an expert dyer, gave his name to a rug type. Rugs woven under such supervision are generally of higher quality than non-workshop rugs, though not in every case. The title is also used more loosely for any highly skilled weaver.
A Kashan workshop tied to the master weaver Hadji Mollah Mohammad Hassan Mohtasham, whose late 19th-century rugs are credited with reviving classical Kashan weaving. Its rugs are noted for refined, densely worked drawing in the Kashan manner, with floral and herbal sprays, palmettes and arabesques, including the medallion-and-corner layout on an ivory or red ground. The name is attached to rugs from the late 1800s into the first half of the 20th century and is regarded as a mark of top quality in Kashan rugs.
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 rug woven in an organized workshop, a setup typical of city weaving, where a master weaver usually oversees the weavers and design and weaving follow stricter standards. Because a workshop can buy wool in bulk and dye it all at once, its material and colors tend to be better, so workshop rugs are generally of higher quality than non-workshop ones, though not in every case. Not every workshop rug is signed. Village rugs, made in a looser, semi-structured setting, usually have lower knot densities than city rugs.