Historical period
Pahlavi
پهلوی1925–1979 · State institutions begin documenting and classifying handicrafts; some village traditions decline as industry expands.
Key developments
- Craft schools
- State documentation
- Design standardisation
Centres of production
TehranIsfahanTabriz
Crafts documented in this period
| Craft | Category | In brief |
|---|---|---|
| Persian carpet | Textiles | A hand-knotted pile textile woven across Iran in city workshops, village looms and pastoral camps, distinguished by regional structure, palette and design vocabulary. |
| Gabbeh | Textiles | 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. |
| Kilim (Gelim) | Textiles | 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. |
| Jajim | Textiles | A narrow-strip flatwoven textile, usually made in warp-faced bands on a portable loom and then sewn together into a wider cloth, traditionally used as bedding cover, floor spread or door hanging by village and pastoral households. |
| Qalamkar block printing | Textiles | 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. |
| Pateh embroidery (Kerman) | Textiles | A hand-embroidered wool textile from Kerman in which coloured silk or wool threads are worked in dense chain and satin stitching over a woollen ground, typically in a limited palette against a natural or dyed field. |
| Sermeh-duzi | Textiles | A metal-thread embroidery technique in which fine gold or silver wire, or wire-wrapped thread, is couched onto velvet or other heavy cloth to create raised, reflective patterns, historically used on ceremonial garments and furnishings. |
| Namad felt | Textiles | A non-woven wool textile made by matting and pressing raw wool fibres with moisture, heat and friction rather than by weaving, traditionally produced across Iran for floor coverings, cloaks and protective mats. |
| Giveh footwear | Textiles | A traditional handmade summer shoe with a cotton-thread woven or crocheted upper and a sole historically made of pressed cotton fabric or leather, produced in a number of Iranian towns known for the craft. |
| Zilu (Meybod) | Textiles | A dense, pileless cotton floor covering woven on a horizontal loom, historically centred on the town of Meybod near Yazd, known for its plain-weave structure and geometric pattern created through warp and weft colour arrangement. |
| Minakari enamel | Metalwork | A decorative technique in which powdered coloured glass is fused by heat onto the surface of gold, silver or copper objects, producing a smooth, glossy coloured surface, historically practised in Isfahan on vessels, jewellery and decorative panels. |
| Filigree (Malileh) | Metalwork | A metalworking technique in which fine drawn wires of silver or gold, often twisted or beaded, are soldered into openwork lattices and coiled floral forms to build jewellery, vessels and decorative panels. |
| Lalejin pottery | Ceramics | A regional pottery tradition centred on the town of Lalejin near Hamadan, producing thrown and press-moulded glazed and unglazed earthenware, from utilitarian storage vessels to decorative tableware, in a large number of household workshops. |
| Gereh-chini lattice | Woodwork | A joinery technique for building geometric lattice screens and panels from small, precisely cut wooden pieces assembled without glue or nails, using interlocking notched joints to form windows, doors and room dividers with openwork star and polygon patterns. |
| Wood carving (Monabbat) | Woodwork | A relief wood-carving technique in which solid panels, furniture and architectural elements are carved directly with chisels to produce raised or recessed floral, arabesque and geometric ornament, distinct from inlay techniques that build a surface from separate pieces. |
| Persian lacquer painting | Painting | A decorative technique in which papier-mâché or wooden objects, such as boxes, mirror cases and pen boxes, are painted with fine miniature-style scenes or floral ornament and then sealed under multiple coats of clear lacquer varnish. |
| Turquoise inlay (Firuzeh-kubi) | Metalwork | A decorative technique, associated particularly with Mashhad, in which small chips of turquoise are set edge to edge with adhesive onto a metal object's surface to create a dense mosaic-like covering, most often seen on vessels, jewellery and decorative plates. |
| Rasht embroidery (Rasht-duzi) | Textiles | A northern Iranian needlework tradition associated with Rasht in Gilan, combining wool felt or broadcloth appliqué with chain-stitch embroidery for covers, hangings and saddle cloths. |
| Instrument making (Saz-sazi) | Musical instruments | The workshop making of Iranian instruments such as the tar, setar, kamancheh, santur and oud, combining woodwork, skin membranes and inlaid decoration. |
Period dates follow conventional scholarly ranges. Attributing a single object to a period is often uncertain; this page is under review.