Ivory and Blue Gonbad Dome Nain, Hand-Knotted Wool Rug

Material: 100 percent hand-spun wool pile, hand-knotted on a cotton foundation.

Care instructions

• Vacuum gently and regularly on a low setting.
• Rotate the rug every six months for even wear.
• Blot spills immediately, working from the outside in.
• Keep out of prolonged direct sunlight.
• Have the rug professionally hand-cleaned every few years.

Gonbad is the Persian word for dome, and a Gonbad rug asks you to read the floor as a ceiling. Lie it flat and you are looking straight up into a mosque: a rosette at the apex, ribs radiating outward and widening as they descend, and at the lower edge an arcade of mihrab niches standing in for the walls. The widening of the rays is a deliberate trick of perspective, giving the flat pile a sense of real depth. The design is thought to derive from the seventeenth-century dome of the Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque in Isfahan and entered carpet weaving around the turn of the twentieth century. It is among the most demanding of all Persian designs, since every ray must be drawn to a different width yet resolve perfectly at the centre, and Nain — a town whose weavers came to carpets from fine cloth-making and are known above all for precision — is one of the few places that weaves it well.