British textile dealer Ziegler and Company purchased a pair of heavily worn carpets from the Sheikh Safi al-Din KhΔnegΔh and Shrine Ensemble in Ardabil, northwestern Iran, through Persian agent Hildebrand Stevens in 1890, acquiring what scholars now recognize as among the finest achievements of Islamic textile art. The larger carpet, catalogued as museum number 272-1893 at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, measures 10.51 by 5.34 meters in its current state and contains approximately 25 million knots at a density of 340 knots per square inch, woven over approximately four years between 1539 and 1540 during the reign of Safavid Shah Tahmasp I. A cartouche at one end contains an inscription reading "Except for thy threshold, there is no refuge for me in all the world. Except for this door there is no resting-place for my head. The work of the slave of the portal, Maqsud Kashani, 946," providing both the precise Islamic calendar date of 946 AH, equivalent to 1539-1540 CE, and attribution to court official Maqsud Kashani, making it the earliest explicitly dated Persian carpet known. The design features a central yellow medallion surrounded by sixteen radiating pointed ovals and flanked by two hanging mosque lamps of different sizes, possibly employing graphical perspective though this remains debated, all executed on a dark blue ground with intricate scrollwork of blossoms, leaves, and cloud bands in ten colors derived from natural dyes including pomegranate and indigo. William Morris, serving as the museum's Art Referee, described it as having "no counterpart" and persuaded the V&A to raise £2,000 through public subscription for its March 1893 purchase, while the companion carpet, stripped of salvageable sections to repair the V&A example, was sold to American collector J. Paul Getty and now resides in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Material and Craftsmanship
The carpet's foundation consists of white or undyed silk for both warp and weft threads, with 35 warp threads per square inch running lengthwise and three paired weft shoots inserted after each row of knots running crosswise. This silk foundation provided the strength and stability necessary to support the dense wool pile while allowing the extreme knot density that enabled intricate design detail.
The pile employs wool dyed in ten distinct colors: three shades of blue, three shades of red, yellow, green, black, and white. Chemical analysis identified natural dye sources including indigo for blues, madder and pomegranate for reds and yellows, and other plant and mineral pigments. The subtle variations in shade within individual color families created depth and visual interest, with darker and lighter strands of the same hue producing dimensional effects enhancing the design's complexity.
Weavers employed the asymmetrical or Persian knot technique, tying each wool strand around one warp thread and passing it loosely around an adjacent warp before pulling it tight. This knot type, also called the Senneh knot despite originating elsewhere, allows finer detail than symmetrical Turkish knots and predominates in Persian carpet tradition. The 340 knots per square inch, equivalent to approximately 5,300 knots per ten centimeters square or 517,500 knots per square meter, represents extraordinary density requiring exceptional skill and patience.
The production process involved a team of up to ten skilled weavers working simultaneously from detailed drawings provided by a specialist designer. While domestic carpet weaving was typically performed by women at home, court commissions of this magnitude and prestige were likely woven by men working in dedicated royal workshops. The four-year production timeline reflects not merely the time required to tie 25 million individual knots but also the meticulous attention demanded to maintain design consistency across such vast dimensions.
The workshop location remains debated among scholars, with various experts proposing Tabriz in northwestern Iran near Ardabil, Kashan in central Iran where Maqsud Kashani's name suggests origin, Isfahan, or Kirman. The lack of definitive documentation prevents conclusive attribution, though most specialists favor either Tabriz for its proximity to the shrine or Kashan for the signed craftsman's association with that city.
Form and Features
The design integrates multiple compositional elements into unified visual program covering the carpet's entire surface. A dark blue ground provides consistent background against which yellow, red, green, and lighter blue ornamental elements achieve maximum visual impact. The border consists of four parallel bands of varying widths, the widest featuring cartouches filled with calligraphic inscriptions and decorative patterns, surrounding the main field.
The central medallion dominates the composition, a large yellow sunburst form with sixteen radiating pointed ovals creating a star pattern. This medallion shows striking similarity to the interior dome decoration of the Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque in Isfahan, suggesting shared design vocabulary across Safavid architectural and textile arts. The medallion's complexity derives from multiple layers of ornamental detail, with scrolling vines, blossoms, and geometric patterns filling every available space.
Two mosque lamps hang from the central medallion's upper and lower points, rendered in yellow with detailed ornamentation. These lamps differ significantly in size, with the lamp at one end substantially smaller than its counterpart at the opposite end. Some scholars interpret this size differential as deliberate application of graphical perspective, arguing that when viewed from the end with the smaller lamp, both lamps would appear equal in size due to foreshortening. However, this interpretation faces challenges from the fact that systematic graphical perspective had not been documented in 1530s Iranian art, leading alternative interpretations suggesting the lamps simply represent actual mosque fixtures in their natural variety.
Four corner-pieces occupy the field's corners, each comprising a quarter-section of a medallion similar to the central design but simplified and without hanging lamps. This arrangement creates visual balance, anchoring the composition's corners while allowing the central medallion to dominate.
The entire surface between these major elements fills with dense scrollwork featuring fantastic swirling flowers and leaves characteristic of early Safavid design. Symmetrical snake-like forms representing clouds appear throughout, adding movement and depth to the composition. The scrollwork's complexity demonstrates the designer's command of ornamental vocabulary and the weavers' technical capacity to execute minute details at such scale.
The inscription cartouche contains verses adapted from the 14th-century Persian poet Hafez, followed by the attribution and date. The poetic text reads "Except for thy threshold, there is no refuge for me in all the world. Except for this door there is no resting-place for my head," employing metaphorical language where "threshold" and "door" reference both the shrine and the divine presence housed within it. Maqsud Kashani's self-designation as "slave of the portal" reflects conventional humility formulae rather than literal servitude, positioning himself as humble servant of either the shrine or the royal court that patronized it.
Function and Use
The carpets were commissioned as royal gifts for the Sheikh Safi al-Din shrine in Ardabil, burial place of the Sufi mystic who died in 1334 and ancestor of Shah Ismail, founder of the Safavid dynasty in 1501. The shrine had become a major pilgrimage site by the 16th century, receiving elaborate gifts from Safavid rulers including libraries of sacred and secular texts, Ming dynasty porcelain, lamps, silk brocades, and candlesticks. The presentation of such magnificent carpets demonstrated the dynasty's piety and wealth while honoring their spiritual and genealogical connection to Sheikh Safi al-Din.
However, recent scholarship has questioned whether the carpets were actually made for Ardabil. The carpets' dimensions would not fit comfortably within the shrine's interior spaces, leading some specialists to propose alternative original destinations including the more spacious Imam Reza Shrine at Mashhad. Additionally, an 1795 inventory of the Ardabil shrine's contents does not mention any carpets matching these descriptions, suggesting they may have arrived there later as gifts or transfers from elsewhere.
The deliberate size difference between the two lamps has functional implications for viewing. The carpet was designed to be displayed flat on the floor with low cushions placed at the end where weaving began, typically the end with the smaller lamp. Viewers seated on these cushions would look along the carpet's length, experiencing the perspective effect if indeed that was the designer's intent. The pile direction, running toward this viewing position, would catch light to make colors appear more luminous when seen against rather than with the pile.
The carpet served multiple functions beyond floor covering. In Islamic interior spaces, especially those associated with prayer and contemplation, carpets created sanctified zones, defined spaces for ritual activity, and demonstrated wealth and cultural refinement. The Ardabil carpet's exceptional quality, enormous size, and explicit religious dedication elevated it beyond utilitarian floor covering to devotional object in its own right, material expression of faith and royal patronage.
Cultural Context
The Safavid dynasty ruled Iran from 1501 to 1722, establishing Shi'a Islam as the state religion and presiding over one of Islamic art's most important periods, particularly for textiles, manuscripts, ceramics, and architecture. Shah Tahmasp I, who commissioned the Ardabil carpets during his reign from 1524 to 1576, ranks among the dynasty's great art patrons, supporting manuscript production, painting, carpet weaving, and architectural projects.
The carpet weaving industry flourished under Safavid patronage, with royal workshops producing carpets for palace use, diplomatic gifts, and religious endowments. These workshops brought together the period's finest designers, dyers, and weavers, establishing technical and aesthetic standards that defined classical Persian carpet tradition. The integration of court painters and manuscript illuminators into carpet design elevated the medium, applying sophisticated compositional principles developed in miniature painting to textile art.
The Ardabil carpet exemplifies early Safavid design vocabulary before the style's full elaboration in later decades. The scrollwork patterns, flower forms, and overall compositional approach show clear relationships to contemporary manuscript illumination and architectural decoration, demonstrating unified aesthetic vision across multiple artistic media. This integration of design principles across architecture, painting, and textiles characterized Safavid court art, creating coherent visual culture reinforcing dynastic identity and political ideology.
The carpet's original context within a Sufi shrine connects to Safavid religious politics. The dynasty legitimized its authority partly through claimed descent from Sheikh Safi al-Din and association with Sufi mystical traditions, though they simultaneously promoted orthodox Shi'a Islam. The shrine at Ardabil represented this dual identity, functioning as both family mausoleum and Sufi pilgrimage center. Magnificent gifts to the shrine demonstrated the rulers' piety while reinforcing genealogical claims to power.
Discovery and Preservation
The carpets remained at Ardabil until 1890 when Ziegler and Company, a Manchester-based trading firm with Persian operations, acquired them through agent Hildebrand Stevens. Both carpets showed severe wear from centuries of use, with the pile worn through to foundation threads in many areas and portions of borders damaged or missing. Ziegler employed restoration specialist Robinson and Company to consolidate the better-preserved carpet using salvageable sections from its more damaged companion.
This restoration involved cutting undamaged sections from one carpet and applying them as patches to repair corresponding damaged areas on the other. The borders received particular attention, with substantial portions of the V&A carpet's current borders actually transplanted from its companion. This practice, standard for the period but now considered unacceptable by conservation ethics, created a composite object preserving maximum visual coherence at the expense of leaving the second carpet incomplete.
The restored carpet appeared at dealer Edward Stebbing's Wigmore Street showroom in London in 1892, marketed as "The Holy Carpet of the Mosque at Ardebil" and emphasizing its exceptional quality and royal provenance. William Morris viewed it and immediately recognized its significance, writing to Thomas Armstrong that "it has no counterpart" and describing it as "a remarkable work of art... the design is of singular perfection... its size and splendour as a piece of workmanship do full justice to the beauty and intellectual qualities of the design."
Morris, serving as one of the V&A's Art Referees advising on acquisitions, persuaded the museum to pursue purchase despite the substantial £2,000 price, then equivalent to approximately £250,000 in modern value. The museum organized public subscription campaign to raise the necessary funds, successfully completing the purchase in March 1893. The acquisition represented the museum's second most expensive purchase since World War II at that time.
The existence of the second carpet remained unknown to the museum until 1914 when inquiries revealed that the restoration had involved cannibalizing a companion piece. This second carpet, measuring approximately 7.19 by 4.00 meters after removal of sections used for repair and lacking its borders and portions of the central field, eventually passed through various collectors before J. Paul Getty donated it to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art as accession number 53.50.2.
Fragments removed from the Los Angeles carpet during the 1890s restoration have occasionally surfaced on the art market, creating scattered remnants of what was once a matched pair. These fragments complicate understanding of the original carpets' complete appearance and design integration.
Conservation work in 1974 ensured the V&A carpet's safe display for three decades, but the protective glazing had greenish tinge that obscured the colors' true vibrancy. In 2006, the museum created a vast specialized display case in the Jameel Gallery of Islamic Art's center, allowing floor-level presentation as originally intended. The carpet is illuminated for ten minutes on the hour and half-hour to preserve colors from excessive light exposure while enabling periodic viewing.
The decision to display the carpet horizontally rather than hanging it vertically reflects both conservation concerns and aesthetic considerations. The enormous weight would stress fibers if hung vertically, while floor display recreates original viewing conditions and reveals the perspective effects in the lamp motifs.
Why It Matters
The Ardabil Carpet documents the technical and aesthetic heights achieved by Safavid court workshops during the 16th century, demonstrating organizational capacity to coordinate teams of specialized artisans producing objects of unprecedented scale and complexity over multi-year timelines. The explicit date of 946 AH provides rare chronological anchor for Persian carpet studies, as most historical carpets lack definitive dating evidence, enabling scholars to establish stylistic development sequences and attribute undated examples through comparative analysis. The integration of sophisticated compositional principles derived from manuscript illumination and architectural decoration into textile medium illustrates how Safavid court culture maintained unified design vocabulary across multiple artistic disciplines, creating coherent visual expression of dynastic identity and Islamic artistic tradition. The controversial 1890s restoration involving cannibalization of one carpet to repair another exemplifies historical conservation practices now considered unacceptable, raising questions about how intervention in the past continues affecting objects' interpretation and value in the present. The carpet's role in establishing Islamic art as legitimate scholarly field and museum collection category demonstrates how individual exceptional objects can reshape institutional practices and public perception, with William Morris's advocacy proving instrumental in British museums' subsequent commitment to collecting and studying Islamic artistic production. The ongoing debates regarding original location and commission circumstances illustrate how incomplete documentation complicates even well-known objects' interpretation, requiring scholars to acknowledge uncertainty while advancing understanding through careful analysis of material evidence, stylistic comparison, and historical context.