Isfahan Rugs and Isfahan Carpets

Isfahan, or Esfahan, was located in central Iran during the Safavid dynasty in the 16th and 17th centuries and became the capital of Persia. UNESCO has designated it a World Heritage city for its architecture, palaces, tiled mosques, minarets, and other historical buildings and its monuments, paintings, and artifacts.

The city’s fame led it to be described as “half of the world.” Isfahan handmade rugs are among the outstanding works of art of Isfahan, which include artistic curvilinear designs and Gonbad designs, lotus blossoms, weeping willows, and the tree of life.

The Gonbad design is based on and inspired by the dome of the Lotfollah Mosque in Isfahan, and it features geometric patterns or ellipses, with a rosette or floral motif inside, arranged around the central medallion that gradually increases in size on the outer diameter of the pattern. The very old and antique Persian Isfahan rugs are made of superior quality kork (a ball of exceptionally fine quality wool) on a cotton foundation, but rugs from seventy to ninety years ago and newer rugs, from kork or wool with silk highlights on a silk foundation. The use of such high-quality materials and fine yarn allows weavers to make intricate curvilinear designs, which make these handmade Isfahan rugs among the highest-quality rugs that you can find in Iran.
Beautiful Rugs has several handmade Isfahan rugs that include a large area of Persian Isfahan rug (catalog number 475) with a deep red field with a small central medallion of a circular rosette enclosed within a diamond formed by eight Shah Abbasi lotus flowers and more bright yellow to mid-brown Shah Abbasi flowers, round rosettes, serrated leaves and tendrils that form elegant arabesque circles and semi-circles in the red field, and since they are fairly widely space, they leave most of the red field visible. The main border is navy blue and uses darker red floral patterns of Shah Abbasi motifs.

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