Exhibition
The Drawn Carpet
فرشِ نقشهکشیدهCartoons, knot counts and the workshop weavers of Tabriz
Curatorial narrative
In a workshop carpet the design exists twice: once on the squared paper of the cartoon, and once in wool. The weaver translates the drawing knot by knot, and the fineness of the result is read in the density of those knots.
Tabriz organised this translation on a commercial scale in the nineteenth century, and its workshops still set the reference for designed, drawn-carpet weaving in Iran.
This exhibition is an editorial arrangement of archive material. Objects shown are sample marketplace records, and photographs are representative examples — not images of a physical collection.
More exhibitions
Other curated readings of the archive.