Fine weavers and artists have been creating Persian rugs for centuries (for at least 2,500 years. These textile works of art can last decades – even centuries – so it’s not surprising that there are a few “famous” Persian rugs.
Read below for a handful of them.
Two carpets created in the 16th century (around 1539-40) make up the pair of carpets singly known as the Ardabil Carpet.
One carpet is in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London with the smaller of the two in the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
The carpet in London is 34 ½ x 17 ½ feet, which means it has about 26 million knots in total.
The rugs are highly regarded in part because of the deliberate use of graphical perspective in that the rugs depict (among other things) two lamps at either end. The lamps are of different sizes; however, if one looks at the rug from the end with the smaller lamp, the lamps appear to be the same size.
The larger carpet arrived in London in 1893 pretty much in shreds and so the smaller of the two (the one now in Los Angeles) was later “sacrificed” in order to restore the other (the “sacrificed” no longer has a border and has some of its field missing).
The Ardabil Carpet’s design is so popular that several other Persian rugs have the same design. Wikipedia.com reports that there’s an “Ardabil” at 10 Downing Street in London. Hitler also was said to have an “Ardabil” in his Berlin office.
Another famous rug, the Pazyryk Carpet is believed to be the oldest extant Persian rug (although a few experts dispute this.) Discovered during an archeological dig in the 1940s, the rug is believed to be at least 2,000 years old. It’s now housed in St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum.
One of the largest carpets in the world is the “Carpet of Wonder” located in the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque in Muscat (in the Sultanate of Oman). This carpet – finished in 2001 – measures 4,343 square meters (almost 14,300 square feet). It took 600 workers four years to create (or 12 million man-hours).
The “Carpet of Wonder”.
Sotheby’s auction house in New York City in 2013 sold an antique Persian rug for $34,000,000. The rug – which is predominately red and featured (according to Sotheby’s) a “sickle-leaf, vine scroll and palmette ‘vase’-technique” was created in the 17th century. At 8’9” x 6’5” the rug wasn’t large at all (about the size of rug to be placed under a four-person dining room table).
When you want your modern or antique Persian or Oriental rug cleaned properly – bring it to Persian Rug Cleaner of Dallas. We hand wash all of our rugs, ensuring their safety and thorough cleaning. Contact us by calling 972-447-9600.
Image courtesy of PersianCarpetGuide.com.
