Origin
Cultivated and gathered across Iran; cochineal and indigo also traded.
Properties
- Ages gracefully
- Shifts with mordant
- Batch variation (abrash)
- Varying lightfastness
Preparation
Fibre is scoured, mordanted — historically with alum — then dyed in successive baths.
Care & preservation
Limit light exposure; fugitive yellows fade first and can misdate a piece.
General guidance only. For valuable or fragile pieces, consult a qualified conservator before cleaning or treatment.
Used in these crafts
A hand-knotted pile textile woven across Iran in city workshops, village looms and pastoral camps, distinguished by regional structure, palette and design vocabulary.
A thick, coarsely knotted pile rug woven mainly by pastoral and village weavers of the Zagros, with open fields, few motifs and a directly personal design language.
A patterned Iranian brocade woven with supplementary wefts, historically in silk and wool, associated above all with Yazd and Kerman.
The workshop carpet tradition of Tabriz in East Azerbaijan, characterised by drawn cartoons, a distinctive hook-knife weaving method and a wide range of fineness grades.
The Iranian tradition of small-scale painting made for manuscripts and albums, built from fine line, flat luminous colour and layered spatial convention rather than single-point perspective.
A hanging cursive script developed in Iran for Persian poetry, distinguished by its sloping baseline, sharply contrasted thick and thin strokes, and sweeping final letters.
Square polychrome tiles painted with several overglaze colours and fired together, allowing large architectural schemes to be produced faster than cut tile mosaic.