Handwoven in Iran · Since the 5th Century BC

The Living
Art of
Persian Carpet

Every knot a meditation. Every pattern a story woven across centuries of civilization.

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Featured Masterwork · Qom Silk Carpet

A Garden in Silk — Pictorial Floral Tableau

Persian Qom Silk Floral Tableau Carpet
Qom · Pure Silk · Pictorial Tableau · Handwoven · Gallery Exhibition
Expert Analysis · Authenticated

Vase of a Thousand Blooms

Persian Pictorial Silk Carpet · Qom Province

OriginQom (Qum), Iran
MaterialPure Silk Pile & Foundation
StylePictorial Tableau (Tablo)
Knot TypePersian Asymmetric (Senneh)
Knot Density800–1,000+ per dm²
DisplayGallery Exhibition · Gilded Frame

This extraordinary piece belongs to the highest tradition of Qom pictorial carpet weaving — the tablo (tableau) form — in which a carpet transcends floor covering to become a work of fine art, hung on walls and displayed in galleries as painting. Qom, the holy city of Iran, produces what many connoisseurs consider the finest silk carpets on earth.

The composition centers on an ornate European-style porcelain vase overflowing with a lavish bouquet. The flowers are rendered with breathtaking botanical fidelity: large white peonies, blush roses, deep orange dahlias, blue cornflowers, and delicate white daisies emerge with a three-dimensional presence that rivals oil painting.

The warm amber-brown background creates a chiaroscuro effect reminiscent of Dutch Golden Age still-life painting — a deliberate homage to European masters filtered through Persian artistry. Displayed in an ornate gilded frame, the carpet confirms its status as a collectible art object.

Visual Elements

Anatomy of the Masterwork

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Floral Composition

The bouquet features identifiable species — peonies, roses, dahlias, cornflowers, anemones, daisies — rendered with the precision of a botanical illustrator. Each petal and leaf is individually knotted in silk.

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Chiaroscuro Light

The warm amber background fades from luminous centre to deep shadow, a technique borrowed from Flemish and Dutch painting. Silk's natural sheen amplifies this illusion of light falling across the composition.

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The Porcelain Vase

The vessel itself is a tour de force — white porcelain painted with its own floral sprays and gilded handles, depicted in perfect perspective at a scale requiring extraordinary weaving finesse.

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Silk Material

Pure silk pile produces a lustrous sheen that shifts with the viewer's angle. Qom's finest pieces achieve over 1,000 knots per square decimetre on a silk foundation, creating paintings in pile.

Atelier Selection · Qom Province

Two Masterworks from Qom

Both pieces are pure silk, handwoven in Qom — the holy city that produces Iran's most revered tableau carpets. Each is a singular work of art, never to be replicated.

Persian Qom Garden Carpet — Golden arabesque field with birds and animals
QOM · PURE SILK

Garden of Paradise

Qom · Pure Silk · Arabesque Garden Field

A transcendent golden-field garden carpet alive with arabesque scrollwork, perching birds, grazing animals, and flowering trees rendered in extraordinary botanical detail. The luminous saffron ground is framed by a dense dark border of interlocking floral arabesques — a masterwork of the Safavid garden tradition.

StyleGarden · Arabesque
MaterialPure Silk
FormatWall Tableau · Framed
KnotPersian Asymmetric
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Persian Qom Silk Floral Vase Tableau
QOM · PURE SILK

Vase of a Thousand Blooms

Qom · Pure Silk · Pictorial Still Life

A tour de force of pictorial silk weaving — an overflowing bouquet of peonies, roses, dahlias and cornflowers in a hand-painted porcelain vase, rendered with the fidelity of a Dutch Old Master painting. The warm amber chiaroscuro background and silk's natural sheen create a luminous, three-dimensional presence that defies the medium.

StylePictorial Still Life
MaterialPure Silk
FormatWall Tableau · Framed
KnotPersian Asymmetric
ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS PIECE
Heritage

A tapestry of civilisation

The Persian carpet is not merely a floor covering — it is a portable paradise, a garden frozen in silk and wool. Born in the nomadic tribes of ancient Persia, it evolved over millennia into one of humanity's most sophisticated art forms.

Each carpet is a manuscript written in the language of color and knot, recording the flora, mythology, and spiritual beliefs of its maker's world. The finest examples took teams of weavers years to complete, their hands moving with the precision of calligraphers.

Recognised by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, Persian carpet weaving represents an unbroken dialogue between tradition and creative spirit.

i.
Shearing & Washing

The finest wool is hand-shorn in spring from sheep grazing at high altitude, then washed in running water and sun-dried to preserve natural lanolin.

ii.
Spinning

Fibres are hand-spun onto wooden spindles. In silk carpets, the thread is harvested from silkworm cocoons and reeled with extraordinary care.

iii.
Natural Dyeing

Madder root for crimson, pomegranate rind for gold, indigo for blue. Each bath is mordanted with iron, alum, or tannin for colour permanence.

iv.
Setting the Loom

Silk warps are stretched on a vertical loom. The master weaver works from a full-scale colour cartoon called a naksheh, holding the entire design in memory.

v.
Hand-Knotting

Each knot is tied by hand around two warps. A skilled Qom weaver ties up to 10,000 knots daily. A fine silk tableau may contain 25 million knots in total.

vi.
Finishing

The piece is clipped to an even pile height, washed in cold mountain water, and may spend months drying in sunlight to reach its final, mellowed perfection.

The Making

A craft measured
in years, not days

The creation of a Qom silk tableau is an act of monumental patience. A single weaver may spend two to four years on one piece, their knowledge passed from parent to child across centuries.

What separates a masterwork is invisible to the untrained eye — the density of knots beneath the surface, the integrity of the natural dyes, the mathematical precision of the pictorial design.

"

The carpet is the garden of paradise brought indoors — a refuge where nature never withers, and beauty is eternal.

— Persian Proverb