SOUTH EAST PERSIA, CIRCA 1900

The knot count measures approximately 9V x 9H per cm. sq.

A number of workshop carpets were woven in Kirman using design elements derived from Western sources following the contemporary fashion of the Qajar period for incorporating European imagery into Persian objects. Portraits of Western historic personages were sourced from available European newspapers, books, postcards, and paintings. One such rug was woven in 1909 to the order of 'Abd al-Husayn Mirza, Farmanfarma, a great grandson of Fath ‘Ali Shah Qajar, and governor of Kirman province who was considered one of the wealthiest men in Persia at the time. The rug was commissioned by his agent, Muhammed Reza Khan from the workshop of the master craftsman Ustad 'Ali-Kirman. Closely related to the millefleurs design of the present carpet, it further incorporates a pastoral scene with European figures posing in front of a country house. The weaver has made certain alterations from the original, however, we can be sure that the fore and middle ground of the medallion are modelled on the painting, 'Les Fêtes Vénitiennes,' circa 1718 by Antoine Watteau (1684-1721). That carpet is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (T 128.1928).

Remarkably, the present carpet has remained in the same family for over one hundred years. It is first recorded as having belonged to Ahmad Qavam (1882 - 1955), also known as “Qavam al-Saltaneh”, one of the most prominent Iranian statesmen of the first half of the twentieth century. Serving as prime minister on five occasions from 1921 to 1952, he held various secretarial, administrative, and ministerial posts under five monarchs of the Qajar and Pahlavi dynasties, from Nasir al-Din Shah (r.1848-1896) to Mohammad Reza Shah (r.1941-1979). The carpet was gifted by Qavam to his niece, Qamar-taj Vosuq on the occasion of her wedding in the late 1920s to Dr. Javad Ashtiany, Dean of Tehran University of Medical Sciences, and has passed by descent through her family.