Ivory Vase Cartouche Isfahan, 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.

Isfahan has been a centre of Persian court weaving since the Safavid era, when Shah Abbas made the city his capital and gathered its finest craftsmen around the great maidan. Its workshops still weave to that standard, and this rug shows why: instead of a single central medallion the ivory field is laid out as a repeating lattice of flowering vase cartouches, each one a self-contained bouquet in indigo, coral and pale blue, set against a tone-on-tone damask ground that only reveals itself as the light moves across the pile. A wide salmon-camel border of palmettes and scrolling vine closes the composition, and the weaver has signed the piece in a small cartouche at the lower edge — a mark of authorship that the best Isfahan workshops have kept up for generations.