Readings of this motif
- Royal hunts and courtly pastimes.
- A pictorial subject chosen for display.
How to recognise it
Look for the Hunting scene (shekargah) as a repeated unit rather than a single image: its scale, density and the way it sits in a border or field often tell you more about workshop and region than the form alone. The same motif crosses weaving, metal, tile and painting, so a match is a starting point for comparison, never proof of origin.
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.
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.
Square polychrome tiles painted with several overglaze colours and fired together, allowing large architectural schemes to be produced faster than cut tile mosaic.