[Music]
for many a year I have traveled many a
mile to lands far away I've gone to see
the mountains the oceans I been to view
but I failed to see what lay not two
steps from my home on a sheaf of paddy
grain the glistening drop of G Sashi let
us weave a carpet a large carpet as vast
as history a broad carpet as enigmatic
as Iranian mystery
let us weave a carpet with the colors of
freedom with threads of love and honor
with strings of faith there shall be
hundreds of souls at every one of its
cords and mended holes yes let us again
weave a carpet as vast as ever lasting
around and her souls sad she's old
young a jobs done
and the Persian carpet is the
manifestation of the artistic work and
the studious nosov the Iranian people
achieved over millennia and this enables
us to hold our heads high in hostel
early his our own soul and Otonashi
Magnum incense and many many Kamali
amused me to namsun Arabic
[Music]
we have a number of ancient fragments
the oldest is the Pacific now in the
Hermitage Museum I've found in Siberia
but thought to be of Persian origin
with a written account by al-tabari
in the 9th century the historian
al-tabari about the carpet kasra the
emperor cosmo and that carpet was seized
in the seventh century as the arabs came
into Persia and and cut up and
distributed amongst the troops I'm going
to read you what Ellsbury says about it
because this is always given as the
instance of an early example of a floral
carpet so maybe we don't have them
because none survived and people say
look look at what else very says the
border was a magnificent flower bed of
blue red white yellow and green stones
in the background the color of the earth
was imitated with gold clear stones like
crystal gave the illusion of water the
plants were in silk and the fruits were
formed from colored stones
[Music]
there's an exceptional collection an
absolutely exceptional collection the
you know that the Iranian community in
London should go and see once a year you
know the odd to bill carpet in the VNA
is without day the master play the most
beautiful and best carpet in the world
and it's in in London it's just it's
fabulous when the V&A bought the article
carpet they bought it from a company in
London called Vincent Robinsons and
Vincent Robinson specialized in textiles
in objects from Asia as well but they
bought it from an an importers called Z
cures and Ziegler's is a trading company
now Zegers bought the carpet almost
certainly from a man called Hildebrand
Stevens and Hildebrand Stevens is a
carpet trade me
Stevens himself presumably bought
fragrance from the article shrine in
northwestern Iran and the article shrine
is the historic dynastic tomb of the
Safavid dynasty it's also a place of
pilgrimage
so it's holy as well as royal and it's a
wonderful complex which was based on the
tomb of Sheikh Safi who was a 14th
century Sheikh whose descendants become
the stuff of the dynasty later when the
article carpet came to the vni it was
discussed as unique objects and a
perfect object and a flawless object as
we know now the carpet is in fact
contains fragments from the twin carpet
which we it which is now in Los Angeles
County Museum of Art but what happened
in that time it was at the carpets and
there were two carpets were repaired
when they were restored to suit the art
market of the day and that means that
when they were fragments they art market
preferred whole carpets because they are
much more valuable more complete and
considered more beautiful but this
carpet which is an extremely special
example was one of two both of which
were damaged the borders were removed
from one car
to complete the other carpets and other
sections so the result was that the two
twin carpets which used to be perfect
twins which lay once in the floor of the
article shrine and the janet's are
building they were restored to to let's
say rectangular carpets but one was -
all as borders and the other one
appeared totally complete but of course
it contains some pieces from the other
carpet to make it perfect it made
commercial sense but it now seems like
something nobody would consider doing -
historic object but if he go beyond it's
that that's the physical repairs and you
look at the design you see an absolutely
exceptional execution of Safavid court
design the audible carpet was actually
lost conserved in the 1970s and they
took major I mean it was a major major
treatment and it was because at that
time they were going to have a new
Islamic gallery and they didn't they
were trying to put loads and loads of
things in so they knew the carpet was
gonna have to go vertically along a wall
well Morris was very heavily involved
with the South Kensington Museum
he was also invited to join the panel of
referees who was on an art committee who
advised people he joined that in 1884
and he was on the panel to his death in
1996 and the one of the treasures was
the audible carpet and when it came up
for sale Morris felt he was one of the
most famous and beautiful carpets in the
whole world and that the museum really
had to have it and it's quite
interesting story there is a quotation
by Morris of what he actually said about
the article carpet because he felt it
would educate the public in art and the
carpet he said as far as I could see is
in perfectly good condition and its size
and splendor as a piece of workmanship
do full justice to the beauty and
intellectual qualities of the design
lastly the fact that it is dated is of
real importance
I mean not merely from a commercial
point of view as it gives us an insight
into the history of the art under
standard whereby one may test the
excellence of the Parma days of Persian
design in short I think that it would be
of a real misfortune if such a treasure
of decorative art were not acquired for
the public
[Music]
to us pattern designers Persia has
become a holy land for their in the
process of time our art was perfected so
this was a quote from a lecture that
William Morris gave and it was called
hopes and fears for art and he gave it
and the lecture in Birmingham and it was
subsequently published we chose to pick
out this and this statement for the
gallery because it shows Morris not just
thinking about design in Britain he's
also looking beyond his own country well
William Morris was very much interested
in all of textiles but carpets were one
of his great loves and he did different
types of carpets when he moved here to
Hammersmith in 1878 he actually start
had a little loom set up in his bedroom
he used to put in some practice weaving
there and the room next to us the
coach-house is actually where the hand
knotted Hammersmith carpets were made it
was in that room where looms were set up
women were employed to hand knot these
carpets obviously named Hammersmith
after the area and they actually wove a
little hammer into the corner as well
sometimes with an M and wavy lines to
signify the River Thames as well
they also made machine carpets in
Morris's factories at Merton Abbey and
also outsource them to other
manufacturers but the hammersmith
carpets are very famous hand-knotted
handmade and that's what we have in our
collection we have two beautiful
Hammersmith carpets here Morris did
actually feel if you had beautiful
things surrounding you it would
influence your quality of life and he
did actually say in one of his letters
to one of his friends that he had a
little Museum of his own he collected
items not just to be beautiful but as a
useful tool to be influenced by so he
had
beautiful selection of Persian carpets
and rugs himself and he's directly
influenced by those and use them as an
educational tool and we do know that he
actually lent these items out some of
them to the South Kensington Museum now
the Victoria and Albert Museum and to
some of his friends who were studying
textile design as well so there are very
useful resource for him to be surrounded
by these items
the Arts and Crafts movement was about
looking at nature looking at the past
for inspiration and looking at all of
other cultures as well he had several
Persian carpets he had different homes
in London and elsewhere and a lot of
those homes he did decorate them with
Persian carpets and rugs the most famous
one of all was kept here in in
Hammersmith it comes got house this
beautiful red vars carpet goes up the
wall and there's like a canopy across
halfway across the ceiling as well and
that was a 17th century example of a
Persian carpet which Morris one of the
reasons Morris put it on the wall was
because he felt that by walking on it it
would wear it out and spoil it and it
was too beautiful for that to happen to
it so it's almost like an ornament and a
decoration to be enjoyed and looked at
and placed on the wall there on display
it meant a great deal to William Morris
and a lot of visitors to his house
commented on this one visitor actually
said it looked like a canopy above a
throne it was so impressive and it was a
huge pop it and when Morris died Jane
his widow sold it to the VNA Museum and
they actually bought it for 200 pounds
and you can now see it on display in the
Jamil Islamic gallery it does have a
label saying it was owned by William
Morris and it's quite close to the
audible carpet which was one of the
treasures of the museum
I think Morris would definitely
appreciate people still have their homes
decorated with these beautiful carpets
he was very influenced by the skills and
the technique used in the hand knotting
and he he admired the Persian technique
more than any any other technique as
well he really thought if you had
beautiful things in your home it would
impact on your quality of life and it
would improve your life so I think the
fact that people still have them to this
day Morris would strongly
approve of that because I think if he
was around he would still be surrounded
himself by these lovely items as well
when he started studying Eastern carpets
at the South Kensington Museum Morris
was so impressed by the 16th century
Persian carpets he saw there he said it
fairly threw me on my back I had no idea
that such wonders could be done in
carpets and then of course he went on to
manufacture his own because either
directly inspired him especially
manufacturing Lee Hammersmith
hand-knotted carpets and he tried to
capture that something of the rich color
and the distinctive patterns of the
repeat and the contrast in the symmetry
of these antique Persian carpets and he
wanted to emulate the East by having
these manufactured in the West and he
thought there were real works of art
they were very expensive though the
hammersmith carpets they took one day to
weave two inches on a loom fooling
motion they were very expensive to buy
and you can people have traced the
evolution in much of his work directly
to the inspiration of the textiles from
16th century Persia and he said that he
used the Sun for South Kensington Museum
as much as any man living it was such a
huge huge importance to him when he
employed his workers he gave him a
better quality of life at Merton Abbey
in Surrey there were quite a Dilek
surroundings near the countryside he had
people's he gave his workers better than
average wages for instance he was a very
good employer and yeah I think he would
hate the fact that any worker child or
adult was exploited when we think of the
way we now wear lots of clothes that
have been made perhaps in countries
where people are being paid bad wages or
in bad working conditions we can look
back to Morris and think about what he
was trying to resolve through the things
that he was making and his ideas so
there's lots of things that he was
trying to think about that that still
have relevant
to us today Morris was very keen on
trying to promote good art education and
talk about art he wanted art at all and
at that time the museum was intended to
be a place that students could come to
and learn about good design so Morris
was very influential in helping other
people learn about Persian design as
well he would have seen Persian
designers as one of the best examples of
how people have been able to interpret
the natural world on a flat surface and
that was very important for Morris he
wanted to make patterns that that worked
on the flat surface but still had a
beauty and rhythm to them and that's
perfectly expressed through Persian
design
Sigmund Freud perdoname levanta Lily or
Ivanka via Marcel hostage Sigmund Freud
was the father of psychoanalysis Freud
was an Austrian neurologist who's due to
several factors had to emigrate from
there and had to spend the final years
of his life in London the most important
possession that he managed to bring over
with him after his emigration life was
his collection of antiques and carpets
to London one of the notable carpets in
his collection is a gasp a carpet which
covered his couch
so why was Freud interested in carpets
and especially Persian carpets he
believed a carpet on the ground hides
mysteries beneath like thoughts fears
and unspoken words that are high enough
they're halfway normal they would you've
done it well Freud was a tremendous
collector of many many different objects
books statuettes antiquities and carpets
he was very he's a very great
storyteller himself he was interested in
people as the sum of their stories the
kinds of experiences they had had he
would weave them into stories about them
and his diagnostic method was kind of
archaeological so he would look at the
story and try to see what was hidden
underneath it and for him the objects
were tools to understand these strata in
human imagination in human consciousness
most famous carpet in Freud's collection
is the carpet that covers the famous
couch the French anthropologist Claude
lévi-strauss talking about what he calls
the indigenous intellectual so if you
like the preliterate thinker
he said that objects were really divided
into two groups for these people things
that were beyond amore good to eat and
things that were being I Paul say good
to think with and oriental carpets
Persian carpets have been good to think
with for a very very long time and again
going back to Freud when we look in his
consulting rooms he has many many
objects whose provenance he could not
have known in any depth because they
come from another world than his so not
just the carpets but also the figurines
wall plaques masks these objects were
good for him to think with and that
power you know of standing by a
beautiful carpet from another culture
and asking yourself what does this mean
what did the person think who made this
who did she make it with PR Nepal say
that carpet was given to him as an
engagement present
by a cousin Moritz and it gives us a
glimpse of the old Middle East before
these very heavy national boundaries and
occupations that Moritz was a carpet
dealer he was a merchant who travels
throughout the Levant trading in things
like carpets and he brought it back
Freud always referred to it as the cut
the Smyrna rug from Smyrna because
that's possibly where Moritz bought it
but it isn't from Smyrna it's a Qashqai
so um but um the the interesting thing
is that it acquired as a result of this
this gift as a wedding prep as a
pre-wedding present an engagement
present a kind of feminine character I
mean it was already a carpet that
celebrated a union that celebrated if
you like desire and of course it becomes
when it's put on the couch the place
where the analysand
picked Freud's patients would lie while
they thought about their own desires and
drives that's the analytic process to
reveal your innermost some to some
extent secrets or he ought to reveal
things that then Freud would interpret
as your secrets so the the carpet has a
kind of already this content that it's a
place of reverie and daydreaming with a
set of slightly erotic overtone and I
think that it this was rather important
to Freud possibly not consciously which
is interesting because Freud has an
unconscious as we do we all do but he
and he wrote in the psychopathology of
everyday life that nothing was ever just
totally a haphazard so the fact that he
puts the carpet on the couch possibly
has unconscious reasoning behind it in
English we have a phrase sweeping things
under the carpet which means hiding
things and pretending they haven't
happened and of course Freud was
completely against hiding things
sweeping things under the carpet he felt
this was very bad for people this was
what this is repression and causes
neurosis or even paranoia so so in his
case he actually lives the carpet up and
puts it on a on a sofa which of course
is not very common I mean it was done a
little Oscar Wilde had a sofa which he
put us a version carpet on but it wasn't
such a common thing to her to form of
decoration mostly carpets were either on
the floor or
tables
[Music]
so there there's a history of trade at
the mayor that has been studied with the
Portuguese colonies the Portuguese had a
trading route that came down through the
Persian Gulf and came out of it Bandar
Abbas
in on the Persian Gulf and that was in
about the sort of fifteenth sixteenth
seconds fifteen sixteenth century and
Persian carpets were coming out there so
typically we see in paintings
accessories there was a lot of trade
coming through the Persian Gulf going in
into Portugal which was the main
colonial power at that time and so we
find 16th century Persian carpets which
is the first sort of Western records
coming into coming into Portugal and
then going through trade and royal
families and into marriage etc coming
out into into Western countries and
Ziegler's is a trading company who
imported exported into Britain from
across the Middle East but had many
branches in Iran with their main one
being in Tabriz they also ordered and
commissioned new carpets I just sat on a
bed that is modern Iraq and they had a
lot of business interests in Iran it was
an Anglo Swiss company that had its
headquarters in Manchester in England
but wove its carpets in Iran and they
were really woven for the Western market
the taste the the the designs were
tailored for very fashionable and
beautiful interiors the scale of the
designs are immediately recognizable
because they are almost overblown so
there's a great scan of the permits the
palette of the colors is softer and it's
more tailored for Western tastes I
started more than 50 years ago
I joined the company called ocm which
was based in London
I think it was the seven most important
importers decided instead of competing
they would collaborate they joined
together to create one company which
would then have a monopoly of the
imports of Turkish carpets and they
created this company in London called
the oriental carpet manufacturers they
appointed a relative of one of the
directors who was called Cecil Edwards
to go to Iran in 1910 and discover what
could be had from Persia and he then
spent 13 years in Persia creating
manufacturing in Hamadan for example but
above all visiting every village every
town every tribe discovering what was
available and buying it and they began
to import big big quantities he wrote a
great book about it in 1923 and
unfortunately there was a fire in his
house in Hamadan and the book was
destroyed and he had to rewrite it and
he didn't rewrite it until 1950 and then
it was published as the book called the
Persian carpet
the liberty is a very famous and
department store here in London it was
founded by Arthur Lazenby Liberty in
1850 and the very first thing that he
brought to the United Kingdom was
oriental carpets and the idea of the
store was to bring goods from the em
from the east to the west and at this
time if you have to remember that this
is the beginning of Victorian times so
things like Persian carpets things like
em Japanese kimonos you know Chinese
porcelain were very unusual things so
the whole shops history started with
that and then as time develops those
cultures and those travels led to kind
of British arts and crafts or furniture
and fashion and things and then we have
the store today but all that history is
still reflected in the store today
Persian carpets are still recognized to
be the best when you when I think of a
handmade carpet when I was a little boy
thinking of Aladdin and his magic carpet
it was a Persian carpet that I pictured
it wasn't an Indian contemporary design
it was a Persian carpet in my world
you're buying a piece of art it's a
piece of art for the floor so the same
way as you would buy a painting for your
wall you've got to engage with it you've
got to fall in love with it and the rug
is exactly the same and actually if you
use it that way what will happen is that
it'll pull the whole room together my
father has been in the business for over
50 years
he started his trade in Tehran mainly
dealing in fine Persian carpets and we
moved to Europe over 30 years ago we
were based in Belgium then we moved to
London in 1986 where we set up our
business in London we try to buy the
most unique pieces of its
style and merit of different various
type of weaving such as tribal weaving
village weaving and of course fine
Persian weaving from workshop pieces
such as Tabriz Isfahan vara mean caramel
and various other region will known for
fine quality pieces restore oriental
carpets that includes Persian carpets
and cleaning service and clean oriental
carpets we hand clean them old-fashioned
way we don't use any machine and that's
that's our services anything hand-woven
we restore I resemble tap around 20 to
incur demo as a laser no said now that I
have I'm sorry
Chalabi my profession is the buying and
selling of Iranian carpets mostly
involved with Persian rugs importing
them from Iran to sell over here it has
been approximately 20 years since I've
been involved with this business in the
UK we were first established in 1997 in
the UK and for approximately 15 years
I've been based in Ealing in West London
we have been present at the ideal home
Expo an exhibition that has been running
from 1908 for the last ten years more in
an advertising capacity we have a stool
there where we display our carpets and
we try to introduce our Ealing business
to the people and throughout the year we
try to serve them in our galleries
lovely meeting him at various fire oh no
wonder this bulimic or named Simon Conan
Kay dizziness a I mean II Lincoln be
Mohammed Rafi Conan K but that T is
celebrating as a owner of that gallery
positive
the assumption was for a very long time
that the floral carpet tradition began
with the Safavids so carpets like the
Schwarzenberg like the Rothschild
hunting carpets like the odd bill and
that they were if not the first an early
generation of floral carpets but
scholars have said to themselves for
many years it seems strange that we have
two millennia of geometric carpets and
then suddenly in the Safavid era in the
16th century we have not just floral
copies but floral carpets that are
unsurpassed ever since so there's always
been a kind of nagging doubt about
whether those fabulous world-famous
Safavid floral carpets and hunting
carpets really were the first generation
but no evidence has been found
encyclopedia iranica has a very learned
article about pre Safavid floral copies
where it says that in miniature painting
timurid miniature painting so this is
15th century by son Gore there are
examples of what could be floral carpets
so there is a possibility that there
were floral carpets in the Tim red era
um but we don't know so we have this
additional fascination with the Safavid
carpets because they seem to spring from
nowhere there are lots of different
bakhtiari carpets that really classic
ones are garden carpets and so they are
they kind of like a bit like Persian
Gardens when you look at
Persian carpets they are the number of
techniques that you find within the
category we call Persian carpets it's
much greater than any other culture or
country producing carpets the it seems
to me that the Persian carpet Weaver's
were pushing the boundaries all the time
they were trying to experiment to see
what would work I gave the fast rate
padding in the global Konya they're half
your hash the harsher the refresh if we
look at old iranian carpets they have
seven to eight borders and there are
four corner pieces latch acts in the
four corners of the carpets and a
medallion in a sensor which is rounded
meaning the Sun or medallion what is
this why does it have seven or eight
borders and why do the 4 corners contain
gardens full of birds and flora what is
that in the center this is the image
that we have of heaven
meaning heaven or the view we had in our
dreams of heaven are brought into the
carpets or vice versa from the carpet to
our dreams if you look at the houses of
yeas they are like this the houses of
Kishan are also like this there is a
fountain in the center of them which in
heaven would be cos'è or Zam Zam
then there are the flower gardens then
the heavenly hot ray on the outskirts of
it if you got to the houses of Yas they
have this shape and resemblance also
these are the parallel influences that
they had upon each other I want to say
how prevalent these are in the rain e'en
culture one corner of our art is our
literature our poetry we know there's a
great many iranian poets have composed
poems regards to carpets in addition to
this I would like to look at it from a
different perspective
Iranian carpets are in our way guardians
of an aspect of Iranian culture between
either post daughter boxers for hanging
on you buddy we have such a wide range
of carpet
in Iranian carpet history it's a very
sophisticated level of production so
much diversity we have geometry we have
order we have figures we have animals we
have flowers and we have let's say
medallions and circles and so on but
carpets do you do we do see floral
themes at different periods of time and
they're they're drawn in a slightly
different way in different periods
[Music]
I assure you as passionate as who's
wonderful machine uh no merely son a bad
what she's a the nomads would share the
wool from their sheep
they would then diets with natural dyes
and the way that they weave it is there
was sit out in nature and weave in
nature they had no specific plan in mind
it was all improvised for example there
could perhaps be a birth taking place
and they will they would portray the
child that was born in the history of
modern arts we have the period 160 to
170 years ago called Impressionism at
that time the painters would take the
canvases from enclosed rooms into nature
they were going to see in the morning in
the morning the sea was in one color in
the afternoon another in the evening
another as a result they were try to
paint very rapidly and created a style
in which reality was important and speed
was important for reality was prone to
change in Fauvism color takes precedence
to the point that the subjects form and
lighting is lost I saw that Gabbay was
very much a painting the primitive
painting a regional piece one that is
Iranian nomadic that very much resembles
to modern styles in the history of
painting we made a film that also shows
a style of painting produced by ordinary
people with no pretensions but their
work is at the same level as to
recognized modern painting styles that
have changed the world of painting when
you view the gabber no two are alike
meaning they're just like paintings in
that there is truly one of them and
original and the artist has a role in
its creation it is what they one says
not something which the market imposes
upon them to make it is true that's it
we'll later find a markets but this is a
market that pursues a taste of the
artist not one that composes his tastes
on to the artist it's not an industrial
work it is a personal craft and because
of this when you bring a gather into
your home you bring a part of nature
into your home
potential of the FRG GABA remains in to
Hoonah tune and got the best hobby at
all worthy to Hoonah to master a car
down and Iranian carpets have a unique
placed among sirenians and are
recognized around the world I began to
paint in my own way more realistic to
bring something new to it and to have my
own style and to portray a better idea
of Iranian culture and tradition it was
in this capacity that I looked Iranian
carpets the colors and the designs that
were used and the ways in which I could
represent them in my own work it was
thus that I began to conduct research
and saw the highlights and shadows they
are found in the carpets the detailing
and iconography which also really
appealed to me my paintings are a
hundred percent inspired by these
carpets and though it may not be obvious
in my work you can be sure there is an
essence of carpets found within them
from childhood the carpets I saw have
left a greater press impression upon me
the one that was most interesting to me
was the carpet that was hanging on my
parents's wore a fire ecology boutique a
juniper Dharma Dharma mache readable
visible
there is something about Persian carpets
that is sticky
two stories magnetic and this is one of
the reasons why the West
Knutson it loves this mythology I'm
entranced by the story that John
Thompson told me about my own carpet you
know that it was made by the bride and
the mother-in-law before the wedding you
know that they sat together and they
they made a bond by working together on
their weaving this is a story that I
love I love the story that Freud's
carpet on his sofa his in his consulting
room was given to him as a wedding
present by his brother-in-law but it we
don't know if these stories are really
true or whether they're the natural
rightness of them in the imagination
causes them to feel true and feeling
true is sometimes as important as being
true I always insisted when I was buying
that I had to see the carpets in
daylight and in the bazaar in Tehran
that is difficult because there isn't
any daylight and I said of course there
is daylight on the roof and everything
which I bought in Tehran they first had
to take up of them onto the roof for me
to look at in daylight and one of the
great things about buying carpets like
that is you realize how friendly the
Persian people are how willing they are
to accommodate some crazy Englishman
with his idea
he has to see it on the roof to make it
possible that nearest or nice it is not
just writings not just stone carvings
that connects us to our past if I were
to travel back in time to know the real
society and people of Iran not just one
that appears on statistics but to know
the reality of these people the carpet
would be a good reflection of this it
gives me something different it
expresses what occurs in the mind and in
fact it is possible to read the Iranian
and the Iranian thinking from these
carpets fast one joy boy here who look
that more him the place of carpets is
truly one of great significance in our
family and past generations I can say
that from the first days that I can
recollect and setting my eyes upon the
world and transposing myself to my
childhood times I can remember one of
the first things was to face of my
parents and the carpets that were
alongside us meaning the patterns of
these carpets and the flowers on these
carpets in a way these connect to our
feelings in our childhood days in my
family we all thought how great it would
be to possess the best and most
beautiful carpets to keep for ourselves
in our future and my sister's think of
it as the most precious part of their
dowry along with other gifts presented
to them at the time of marriage
remember oh yeah oh yeah damn oh no ha
ha Rahman waunakee bill Ronny yeah yeah
he's a bear mr. La Habra he who destroys
energy be punished for harbor armor he
cheesy bought a nostalgic fashionable
abilene kill Chernobyl in must firstly
why are developed an interest in the
subjects it is partly due to the region
in which I lived last is a desert region
not a lot can be found on the ground but
the sky is particularly beautiful the
nights are full of stars and filled with
patterns constellations whilst the
ground is very barren
so many patterns and shapes are found on
the carpets from his region because two
heavenly skies and the aspirations and
the perceptions these people had of the
dreamy heavenly world are somewhere that
was once lush and has now dried is
reflected in these works my father was a
carpet dealer and well I lived in such a
place meaning that the huge house of
ours and its grand main hall was
streamed with hundreds of carpets we
would at night go to look at the starry
night sky and then a day our paradise
and garden was two colorful rocks that
were ever present in our house and with
them we would weave fantasies and that
garden that we could not see I'm ready
feel exposed to in our world we could
find Illustrated on these carpets on
which we were played during a day I have
a carpet in my house this carpets upon
first appearance resembles a traditional
Iranian carpets but the illustrations on
it are different all the pre-islamic
Persian kings the heads of their
dynasties meaning one image of the
Achaemenid one of the Parthian and one
of the sassanid dynasty we have this
carpet laid out on our floor at my house
and when an English friend of mine came
to visit us he said I can't take my eyes
off this carpets
how could you lay this on the floor you
should hang this on the wall of your
house and whenever he comes into our
house and approaches this carpet there's
no chance that he would walk over it I
mean how does that mana Khemia before me
what I think others instead of Hirsch
believe oh well in core negative partial
reinforcement fashioned alumina so many
years as steady Iranian carpets are one
of the purest Iranian art forms
come along mark Iranian painter one day
went to a village where he would paint
an old village it was they're weaving a
carpets and when the carpet was finished
your villager gave it to him and come
along milk said I may be a painter but
the true artist is you when camel old
monk placed the carpet beneath him he
truly revels in it much more than he
would enjoy the painting that he'd paint
and this is the stat I'm Trudi fond of
Iranian carpets boosters and I'm gonna
she's unique you man
well Hannibal at Bear Valley I love mom
and her stamp the mask who the ki Baraat
me or I'm Yuki as far foolish or to get
Ozias I remember from my childhood the
carpet trade had become a member of our
family
meaning that he would have to visit us
every month otherwise we would miss him
it was because my grandfather was
extremely interested in hand-woven
carpets and buying these carpets when
the first female grandchild was born
into the household my grandfather would
buy carpet from this man to serve as a
future dowry for the for the time when
the newborn was to be Wed and this
interest has spread through the whole
family but their timing doesnt short
that I was born in Carmen in 1932
since carmen is a desert region carpets
have floral designs to make up for the
lack of flowers or Bronner they're mean
one must really appreciate the value of
carpets do not think they were made just
like that there were people that truly
put in a lot of effort into these
carpets and they are no longer with us
specifically the old carpets that were
remnants of previous generations that
stay with us today these are the assets
of our nation each atom was ma left the
community we would go traveling since
the people at Balochistan are very are
tenants by their nature which is why
bullet cheston's rugs are not big in
size I once went to a region in the
north of Balochistan and there was a
carpet there that was very nice I was
with one of the Chieftains sudah of
Alexis Tong I look at this carpet a lot
because the illustrations are very
fascinating I was gazing and said
nothing when we were about to leave I
saw that the owner of that carpet had it
nicely wrapped and had given it to me
the generosity of these people
completely unwarranted without me asking
anything of them or them saying anything
they gave its me a DJ in a bathtub and
achieved a passion of all that is per
month
why Kay Warren as Ahava T in Mardon
badoon Inc a cheesy rostrum hi Badu
Nocona cheesy began in a better manner
birthday but are you do or scared any
but the establishment of such a
restaurant the first thing that entered
my mind was to bringing over of
procedures carpets but diverse bright
and attractive colors so that when our
patrons having seen this can understand
that we have brought carpets as
souvenirs from all four corners of Iran
any Iranian from north south east and
west of the country can spot an aspect
of their culture in our restaurants I
felt a combination of iranian food and
Persian carpets was a highly enticing
proposition to iranian so it comes were
restaurants and even people from the UK
who want to dine in a traditional
iranian restaurants when they view our
furnishings alongside the various
decorative items the most important
being carpets would derive a sense of
enjoyment from it as they enter they
begin to take pictures of the walls and
our Iranian decoration particularly our
carpets and they would ask us questions
about the carpets asking where do they
come from and how many knots they have
and how it came to be woven in such a
way and hold old it is all the colors
natural is it made from silk thread or
another material we try to sue in order
to give them a better feeling provide
them with a full explanation and they in
turn listen with glee and interest and
even take notes and pictures and come
back again with their friends yeah or
your as naho abla sure mr. father surely
your as Jesus lady is devoted to the
sign meconium but inky
is so see big teddy we induce along with
him common American cuisine with about
number their backbone made machine
anguish with a Maserati Johanna asked me
gear on when somebody dies in in Iran we
don't use the
the coffin we just wrapped their person
in a white piece of cloth which is
called Koran and then on top of Caffyn
we put a carpet and then we take the the
dead body to the cemetery and we put
flowers on top of the carpet
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mom are assuming that Mazda giving
caution during the German Amish had
alcohol we have a ceremony in the
vicinity of caution known as carpet
washing ritual of our Dahal Galatia in a
place known as Mashhad
Arda hall or ardha Holly cushon which is
also where the resting place mausoleum
of Iranian poets surah seperti is of a
second week of the month of May
September October on the Friday the
people march carrying with them the
carpets which they consider holy and say
relates to the son of Amon Mohammad
bagher one group presents his carpet to
another group and they take it to a
stream where they wash it and then they
bring it back until next year's ceremony
nearly 3,000 to 4,000 people can take
part in a ceremony it is a very old
ceremony the place they recognize as his
resting place is in fact the worshipping
grounds of Tisch trio or annahit sir
deity of rain and this structure was
built upon it years later and this
carpet relates to the rituals of Mithra
now the praise of his carpet and the
washing of it is because of the role it
has played in their lives they respect
this carpet as a symbol of divine
recognition all the tall needles and at
all who an additional God s mission or
that torch a fashion bar near his our
own soil peace the history of Iranian
carpets goes back thousands of years
under reigning carpets have always been
a part of our culture they have served a
major role in the lives of all Iranian a
sirenians have been raised on these
carpets we have heard our celebrations
upon Iranian carpets such as the ancient
festivity of morals the celebration of
sazabi dad in gardens and wedding
ceremonies many of us were raised
alongside a carpet loom for instance my
own mother when talking of hurry
elections will tell us of the time she
spent playing alongside her
grandmother's loom and of the blissful
times she had alongside it so there was
always a connection and intermingling of
carpets with our lives whenever we see
carpets it rekindled fond memories for
us as such when I first left Iran I
visited the Victoria Albert Museum when
I saw the Idabel carpet there it
instilled a sense of pride within me one
fun recollection I have is the washing
of the carpets for no rules the spring
cleaning for when we would go to my
grandfather's house in the east of
Tehran near Tehran parce they had a big
house where they would lay the carpets
outside and the people would help to
wash them they had a very big front yard
and all around they would place these
carpets and would wash them and all of
the children would play around these
carpets vimanam bomani bachelor
permission joy during factual was
indicating and come at McCarran came far
for Ruby Sherrod
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there's something about Persian carpets
very much suited British tastes
something to do with the light and a
love of color so in the revival period
in nineteen in the late 19th century
there was a lot of carpets exported a
lot a lot I mean unbelievable amounts of
carpets British interiors historically
the sort of English country house taste
and people like like color here in like
strong colors and that's what people
like in Iran strong you know red sand
and reds and blues are the fundamentals
of Persian carpets so strong very strong
strong colors and that's what what has
characterized Persian carpets for a long
period and that's why when you go to you
know country houses or you go to older
houses you'll see probably a lot of
Persian carpets on the floor with strong
patterns and I think that that is
something that people that people like
and I think that that sense of of luxury
has always been very important the
uniqueness of the Persian carpet you
know this millennia-old
tradition which has been passed down not
by physical recording but my memory and
emulation copying that has expressed
itself in so many different variants
that is made in so many different social
environments
you know the tent the village the
workshop the palace the palace Atelier
and out of these many streams come this
consistent extremely elevated extremely
refined and extremely beautiful art form
so I think it's unique because of its
fascinating anthropological history its
antiquity
the fact that it expresses itself in so
many diverse forms it's the fact that it
persists and as you know I find this
particularly interesting the fact that
it is largely a woman's craft so women
speak to us through these carpets from
the earliest times so that but I think
is that their uniqueness now so people
in the West are drawn by their great
beauty and by their exotic ISM because
they're different to the kinds of high
art and the kinds of crafts that
developed in the West the extreme focus
on purity balance of decoration of
abstract decoration was an enormous
appeal to the West the first people who
possessed these carpets were extremely
wealthy rulers for example of the
Italian state heads of religious orders
merchants themselves people actually
went and brought them the imperial
families of Europe the Spanish the
Austrian the British and painters the
painters were great collectors
particularly in Italy from those
beginnings a story of mystery endings
artists ISM developed of these carpets
coming from a world of luxury and
possibly slightly strange and different
erotic environments we think of
motorcars
that means Germans think of whiskey that
means the Scots
we think of perfume it means the French
but if you think of carpets
it means exclusively Iran I think that
that rate one of the things that that
would be useful to happen in in Iran is
you know there's a very young population
in in Iran a very young population a
very literate and educated population
and a very strong lot of people
interested in contemporary art and
expressing themselves through
contemporary art you know Iranian
contemporary art is a very big big
movement in a so I would think that it
would be very good to get to connect
those younger people with the carpet
tradition I think that there needs to be
there needs to be a concerted sort of
movement to try and get young people to
express themselves in the tradition
rather than get them to understand the
tradition you know the tradition doesn't
develop it dies must always change it
must always develop and so that's what
that's what I would do I kind of cherish
being a conservator and and looking
after cultural Heritage's because I
think that it's a very basis of
Education and different places have
different cultures and and it they're
fascinating and they're rich and they're
educational and there's something that
should be preserved to me conserved for
the future for future generations and
the Victorian Albert Museum is all to do
with design and it's also reference for
people now I think that cultural
exchanges are deeply important to
maintaining the peace and and civility
of the world and the more were able to
exchange ideas and artifacts and
imaginative structures and beautiful
things with one another the
more likely we are to have an
understanding and to have and to have a
sense of the humanity of one another
and so I regret very much that this
ancient trade which was so-so to grow a
part of the English household since the
17th century since the sixteenth century
there are paintings in the National
Portrait Gallery you see you know
English aristocrats with Persian carpets
I regret that this is something that is
being damaged by the current world
situation
you
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you