Isfahan is one of the few centers of nineteenth-century Persian rug production that had a tradition which could claim to reach all the way back to the classical rugs of earlier centuries. This masterful example beautifully illustrates the depth and reality of that continuity with its allover pattern of elegant, sinuous arabesque vinescrolls. Classical Isfahans with such patterns were based on the designs of book illumination and monumental tile ornament. This example comes especially close to such prototypes in tile, above all those on the magnificent mosques of Isfahan itself.
