AN ISFAHAN CARPET, central Persia, mid 20th century, woven on fine wool with silk base.

Isfahan is a city in central Iran and was the capital of Persia under Shah Abbas and his Safavid successors. Magnificent court carpets were woven in Isfahan in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries up to the Afghan invasion of 1722. After that, Iran’s capital city was successively Mashhad, Shiraz, and finally Tehran. Isfahan regained some of its cultural and commercial prominence only in the 1920s. Between the first and second World Wars, carpets of fine workmanship and good design, but poor dyes were woven in Isfahan. After World War II, very fine carpets with designs of the Safavid period were woven there.
This Isfahan example has a striking decorative impact and elegant composition with a white ground central medallion. This carpet is a Pahlavi item of impressive accomplishment, the rare white and blue corners are decorated with the same pattern of deferent followers and the main beige colour border is also decorated with Shah Abbasislimi design.