The largest group of Safavid survivors
(after the controversial Indo-Isfahans) are the Vase Carpets,
most of which appropriately depict no vases. F.R. Martin assigned
them to Kirman on the basis of their structural similarities
to 19th century carpets from that city, and the standard more
modern work on the subject, May Beattie's "Carpets of Central
Persia", attributes them to an area so large as to comprise
half of Iran . They were surely produced in many different locations,
two other possibilities being Joshagan and Isfahan.
The Vase-carpet structure seems
to be the standard weaving signature of the 17th century, although
the earliest examples perhaps date back to the 16th.
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The designs are virtually illegible
from the reverse side, although a major subgroup, known
as Sanguszko carpets, are said to be readable from the
back. But when a break occurs in the web, figure 27,
it does offer a glimpse of the weave that reminds one
of the 19th century carpets produced in Kirman or Isfahan.
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This Plate's design demonstrates a three-plane
lattice leaf design in the tradition of the compartment
rugs with the compartment in the field demarcated by large
serrated leaves and complex scrolling vines. Another interesting
technical feature is that most of the three plane leaf-lattice
design examples were woven with a thick underlay or backshag,
figure 28.
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This is an archaic feature exhibited
by some of the earliest knotted fragments excavated at Loulan,
an archaeological site located in Chinese Central Asia.
