Carpet Fragment, Vase Carpet, hand knotted woollen pile on cotton warp and woollen and silk weft, Persian, 17th century
Warp: white cotton; Z4S; 32 threads per in/130 per dm; depressed
Weft: carpet sewn onto backboard so difficult to check: wool and silk; spin, ply and twist not known; number of shoots not known but the silk, sinuous weft is used only after approximately 7 rows of knots; 14 knots per inch/58 knots per inch
Pile: wool; 13 colours: dark red, orange, light orange, yellow, dark green, light green, dark blue, blue, light blue, brown, light brown, pink and white; asymmetrical knot tied around two threads and open to the right; 224 knots per sq.in/3770 per sq.dm
Side Finish: cut
End Finish: cut
Design: dark red ground with a main lattice in yellow and blue and secondary lattices, one of which is formed by scrolls with zigzagged-patterned blossoms. There is a vase with a spray of naturalistic flowers in the lower part.
Border: part of a minor border with a white ground and orange, blue and light blue meandering stems, exists along the right hand side of this fragment. It starts part of the way up with a right angle and suggests that the borders did not form parallel lines along the sides of a rectangular carpet. The carept may have been an unusual shape or the borders may have been untypical.