Shiraz – Southern Persia

A splendid antique carpet from Shiraz, reflecting the art of the nomads of southern Persia. Two great serrated diamond medallions command the jasper-red field: above, a salmon diamond strewn with rosettes, set upon a deep indigo ground; below, an ivory one where a stylized flowering tree takes root. Between them sit two smaller stepped medallions — one indigo, one salmon — with a tiny wine-dark lozenge at their center. Around them lives a merry population of small tribal devices: blossoms, stars, little human figures and talismans scattered wherever the weaver’s memory placed them, and a woven date, 1349 AH (1931), signs the work. The ivory main border carries bold polychrome rosettes between zigzag guards touched with orange. Shiraz gathered the weavings of the Qashqa’i and Khamseh tribes, and this carpet keeps their signature: geometry with a pulse, colour with courage, and the unmistakable freedom of the nomadic loom.

The Islamic date 1349 AH (1931) is woven into the piece — a textile document anchoring it in time.