Isfahan, central Persia
Isfahan is one of the largest cities in Persia with about 1.9 million inhabitants. It is located about 400 km south of today’s capital Tehran and also south of the Silk Road.
Isfahan was founded around 1000 B. C., but only attained worldwide fame in the late Middle Ages. At the beginning of the 16th century, Isfahan’s greatest heyday began, with 600,000 inhabitants in the 17th century. In 1598, the then king of Persia, Shah Abbasi, appointed Isfahan as the capital and at the same time gathered over 30,000 artists and craftsmen to Isfahan to expand the city. Thus, in the 16th/17th century, today’s impressive magnificent mosques and palaces such as the Imam Square (formerly Kings Square), which is under the protection of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, were built.
With the expansion of the town, carpet weaving blossomed in Isfahan. Today, the carpets from Isfahan belong to the noblest and most valuable oriental carpets of our time. They are extremely densely knotted with over 1 mio. knots per m2 and often feature high-quality silk. The patterns are diverse and the colors have been modified to cooler grayish ivory and more discreet calm colors and motifs. This makes Isfahan carpets suitable not only for traditional carpet lovers, but also for modern houses and apartments with modern furnishings.