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Image © National Museums Scotland
View full screenPrayer mat, silk, embroidered with a floral design and a cartouche shaped like a prayer stone and containing an Arabic inscription, flanked by two hands, all underneath an arch, surrounded by a border of alternating peonies and rosettes: West Asia, Iran, 1720 - 1725
A.1890.388
Iran, West Asia
1720 - 1725
Safavid period
Silk, Silk, Gold, thread, Silver, thread
Two length of brown silk fabric joined together, on the back lined with a coarser material; embroidered with crimson red, light blue, salmon-pink, yellow, light green, white and orange dyed silk thread in combination with couched silver and gold metal thread wrapped around a white silk core; couching stitches in white and yellow silk, used to create additional texture; the field filled with a large stem of peonies emerging from a vase and forming the middle axis, symmetrical to the left and right curling vines ending in grapes, stylized carnations and possibly daffodils; in the upper half a cusped arch, the spandrels filled with sprays of flowers and vines; underneath the arch two hands flanking a space in the shape of a prayer stone, containing an inscription: الله اکبر سبحان ربی الاعلی و بحمده , "Allah is greater. Glory be to my Exalted Lord and praise be to Him", the border with a scroll of alternating peonies and rosette flowers and quatrefoils in the four corners; the rug does not appear heavily used; the silver is tarnished; metal thread seems mostly intact; the level of fading is not clear.
Paris Exhibition 1889
Scarce, Jennifer M., Domestic culture in the Middle East : An exploration of the household interior, Edinburgh, National Museums of Scotland, 1996
Illustrated (still with a later attribution) in Voigt, Friederike. “’A place where eternally blossoming roses grow’: The garden in Iranian textiles”, Journal of the Oriental Rug and Textile Society, 4 (2), Summer 2021, pp. 4-9 and fig. 8.
A similar prayer mat, dated A.H. 1136 (CE 1723 - 1724) is published in Maktabi, Hadi, The Persian Carpet: The Forgotten Years, 1722-1872, London (Hali) 2019, Fig. 7.1.