Isfahan Rug, In the heart of Persia, Isfahan has maintained its significant role of gathering all the Iranian people and their troops throughout history. The geopolitical location made it the capital of the Safavid Kings, whose desire for luxury started the evolution of the marvelous Isfahan rug. Stay tuned with this article to find out more about the epic stories knotted in these fantastic rugs.
Where is Isfahan?
The evidence of pre-Safavid rugs is specific but rare. Since the Safavid era, rug weaving has expanded in cities and villages. Among all the ruled cities, the Safavid capital has enjoyed the best of rug artisans. With the changing of the capital from Qazvin to Isfahan under Shah Abbas the Great (1571-1629), the golden age of the Persian rug industry began.
Isfahan has an appropriate geopolitical situation. That’s why Shah Abbas believed that the Iranian capital must be in the center of his kingdom to eliminate the Ottomans’ and Uzbeks’ threats. Shah Abbas was fond of architecture, music, painting, and poetry. Some historians claim that he was a skillful rug weaver and established several royal rug weaving workshops in Isfahan.
The History of Isfahan
Shah Abbas had adorned his own palace with exquisite handmade rugs. He also would use rugs as political gifts. One of the several rug workshops was inside the Shah’s palace next to the royal gold smithery. The so-called Polonez rugs (Polish) entered Persia’s rug market in the 16th century. Shah Abbas became so interested and promoted these rugs in the 17th century.
The most excellent ones have silken warp and wefts. The piles are also silken with much more golden threads than in the 16th century. Back then, one could see a noticeable improvement in rug weaving techniques. The weave delicacy and the magnificent designs and rich colors gave the Isfahan rug a worldwide reputation.
The people of Isfahan would weave various silken and gold-woven rugs during the Safavid Era. And Isfahan became a domestic and international center for rug trading.
Nowadays, Isfahan has a population of 2 million. Handcrafts are still popular among the people, and the most popular one is the rug, of course. Isfahan rug has the finest designs among Persian rugs. Even today, Isfahan keeps its patterns and designs and continues the Safavid style.
Technical Aspects and Structure of The Isfahan Rug
Rug experts categorize Isfahan rug under the title “Workshop Rugs.” Isfahan rug is mainly for sale, using loom drawings. The rug weavers produce the regular rugs on unique loom-drawing.
The Isfahan rug benefits from the fixed big looms that let them weave large size rugs. The appropriate warp density increases quality and helps weavers to make sure about the final result from the beginning. Workshop designs are mostly curvilinear and more stylish. Both design and weave are accurate, so the edges are well-ordered.
Although the Isfahan rug lacks improvising, it enjoys a classified type of elegance and high-quality materials. That has given it a high level of artistic grace. The raw materials of Isfahan rug are mostly fine wool, fluff, and silk. Using silken warp is a characteristic of the new-fashioned Isfahan rug. The delicacy of the Isfahan rug’s design is in its fine fibers.
The knot type in Isfahan rug and other Persian peers is the asymmetrical knot. Isfahan’s weavers don’t use hooks and do the knotting all by hand. They also do the polishing along with weaving itself.
Designs and Patterns of The Isfahan Rug
The medallion is the most common sort of design among Isfahan rugs, which is a quarter design. It has a strong coherent structure with well-ordered segmentation, congruous with traditional design rules.
The ratio of medallion and “Lachaks” to other text patterns has primary importance. In Isfahan’s medallion rugs, this ratio is correct. Isfahan designers are entirely subordinate to mathematical proportions. As a result, the medallion’s size is always commensurate with the whole rug, not too big and not too small.
The medallion in Isfahan rug always has a standard size. Medallions are mostly circular in the Isfahan rug. The layers next to the center are compressed, and the layers far from it are wider with larger frames. The frames differentiate the medallion from the Eslimi patterns.
The frame is full of Shah Abbasi flowers and Xitai buds. There are two medallion crests at the vertical sides of it to make a gradual harmony with the background in color and form. The junction between the medallion and its crest is usually a stylish Shah Abbasi flower or an elaborate inscription.
The Eslimi Patterns And Xitai Flowers
In balance with their central medallion, the Lachaks of Isfahan rug are always toric. They’re never triangular nor without curvature. The Lachak’s form is crucial because it shapes the background. The toric Lachaks in the Isfahan rug give an oval shape to the grounds.
Like medallions, Lachaks have layers as well. The layers are painted like their medallions and in balance with the margin. Eslimi motifs are separating borders between Lachaks and margin. Empty spaces between Eslimi lines are mostly full of faint-colored Xitai flowers. The ground’s atmosphere of the Isfahan medallion rug is formed gracefully by the composition of Xitai and Eslimi patterns.
The rotations are shaped with Xitai bands or a mixture of Xiati and Eslimi bands. In the second type, one of the band groups is painted fainter, mostly with a color relative to the background’s color, to avoid amalgamation.
A specific Isfahan medallion is the Dome Design, taken from the inner side of the dome of Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque that shines like a sun in Isfahan’s Naghsh e Jahan Square. Isfahan’s skillful designers have depicted the dome’s inner decoration gracefully as a huge medallion on their rugs. In dome designs, the medallion fills at least half of the ground. Sometimes, its depicted layers extend all over the ground, and the margin’s frame limits them.
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