|
Home
Education Rug Examples Care & Cleaning News Links Contact |
Common Rug Patterns
The Ardebil Carpet(s) 
Said to be the world's oldest dated carpet, the Ardabil carpet was completed in 1539-40. It is named after the town of Ardabil in north-west Iran. Shah Tahmasp, the ruler of Iran between 1524 and 1576, ordered the carpet for the shrine of his ancestor, Shaykh Safi al-Din. (The shrine still stands in the town.) The carpet remained in use there for over 300 years.
The Ardabil carpet is very large, measuring roughly 34½ feet by 17½ feet (10.5 meters by 5.3 meters). Its size and beauty, together with its outstanding historical significance, makes it the most important carpet in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and one of the finest in the world. This most famous of Persian carpets has been copied numerouse times in size from small rugs to full scale carpets. Among others, there is a replica in 10 Downing Street.
The two Ardabil carpets were still in the shrine of Shaykh Safi al-Din in 1843, when one was noted in the dairy of a British visitor. Thirty years or more later, the shrine was in need of repair, apparently from an earthquake, and the carpets were sold off to raise funds for those repairs.
The damaged carpets were purchased in 1890 by Hildbrand Stevens, an agent for Ziegler & Co., a Manchester, England firm involved in the carpet trade. Parts of one carpet were used to patch the other. The result was one 'complete' carpet and one with no border.
It is interesting that these carpets were originally offered (in 1882) to Sydney La Fontaine who was on the board of Oriental Carpet Manufacturers Ltd. but, then he was not allowed into the shrine to view them as he was not Muslim. He refused and continued his journey. When Stevens went to Ardebil he took a trusted Muslim associate with him who described them as the treasures they were. (It is also interesting that Zeigler and OCM were competitors.)
(source:
Three Camels to Smyrna by Antony Wynn )
In 1892, the larger carpet was put on sale by Vincent Robinson & Co. of London. The designer William Morris went to inspect it on behalf of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Reporting that the carpet was 'of singular perfection … logically and consistently beautiful', he urged the Museum to buy it. The money was raised, and in March 1893 the Museum acquired the carpet for £2000, a particulary large sum then.
The second, smaller carpet was sold secretly to an American collector, and in 1953 it was given to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
The Ardabil carpet hung on the wall in this V&A gallery for many years. In 2006, the Museum created the extraordinary case in the centre of the gallery so that the carpet could be seen as intended, on the floor. To preserve its colours, it is lit for ten minutes on the hour and half-hour.
|