Readings of this motif
Scholars and makers disagree about what this motif means. The readings below are presented side by side; none is endorsed as the settled answer.
- Life and continuity.
- A garden tree with no religious reading.
- A modern trade label applied to many tree designs.
How to recognise it
Look for the Tree of life 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.
A flat, pileless woven textile made across Iran by interlocking or slit-weaving coloured weft threads over a warp, used as floor covering, storage bag, saddle cover and tent divider depending on region.
A resist-dyed and block-printed cotton textile, historically associated with Isfahan, in which carved wooden blocks stamp repeating floral and figural patterns onto cloth in successive colour stages.
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.