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Plate One

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Plate Eight

Plate Ten

Plate Twelve

Plate Fourteen

Plate Sixteen & Seventeen

Plate Nineteen

Plate Twenty-One

Plate Twenty-Three

Plate Twenty-Six

Plate Twenty-Eight

Plate Thirty
Plate Two

Plate Five, Six & Seven

Plate Nine

Plate Eleven

Plate Thirteen

Plate Fifteen

Plate Eighteen

Plate Twenty

Plate Twenty-Two

Plate Twenty-Four

Plate Twenty-Seven

Plate Twenty-Nine

Plate Thirty-One & Thirty-Two

PLATE TWENTY-SEVEN


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A general craving for smaller Safavid carpets is nowhere better satisfied than in a group of noble all-silk rugs usually attributed to Keshan, of which sixteen examples are known. Here no expense has been spared to produce a superbly executed commodity.

This Plate is a typical example of this group that interestingly enough shares some design features with the Branicki carpet, including the use of fantastic animals and the same serpent palmettes found in the border of the larger carpet.

Carpets of this type were first grouped together by R.M Riefstahl, one of the earliest carpet scholars, in an article focusing on the silk carpets in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York published in 1916.

Plate Twenty Seven, now known as the Gulbenkian carpet, is one of the nicest of the "silk-Keshan" carpets with the added features of both animal combat scenes and a central medallion.
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