Carpet, Kirman

This carpet playfully reinvents the well-known composition of the chahār bāgh (a four-part garden) rug. Such carpets dating back to the Safavid period (1501-1722) alluded to the classical Persian garden typology by featuring perpendicular channels of water, which split the rug into beds planted with trees. Here, there are no streams of water but channels of cartouches and floral motifs that split the main field into four large rectangles, each composed of twenty-four smaller rectangles. These rectangles illustrate various vegetal and architectural motifs, creating a busy surface in which the chahār bāgh composition becomes lost. Inscription (at the top center of the carpet in a cartouche): سفارش دیلمقانی, 92(made to the order by Dilmaghani; [12]92 H or 1875/1876)