Persian Carpets

I have always been fascinated by Persian carpets. In the early 1990s, there used to be regular carpet auctions in Singapore on weekends by several dealers. These were held  in hotels and each auction would feature about 80 to 100 pieces. You would view the pieces on a Saturday and the auction would be on the Sunday.

So I used to view the carpets, talk to the dealers and attend these auctions for many years.  I learnt so much about carpets like the manner of weaving these wonderful carpets, the different styles, patterns and motifs of the different regions, the difference between silk and wool carpets and the difference between tribal and modern pieces. Some of them, especially from the Isphahan region were so beautiful.  Some were even signed by the master weavers. I believe these auctions ended about the time of the Asian currency crisis around 1997.

Over the years I have collected a few carpets and they have been in my storage for some years now.

Over the weekend, I came across an auction by a famous Japanese auction house of 2 Persian carpets which are really special.

These 2 Kashan handmade carpets are silk pieces and they were specially commissioned by the then Empresses Farah of Iran. They are signed and inscribed and were presented as a state gift by the Shah and Empress of Iran to the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1976/77. They were presented on the occasion of the changing of the Iranian calendar year by the Shah. He decided that the Iranian year should commence from the time Emperor Cyrus started his rule in 559BCE instead of the then starting point of 622 CE. This was done in 1976 and the Iranian calendar year that year was suddenly changed to 2535. There was an uproar in Iran when this decision was made and it coincided with the general unrest that was happening about this time in Iran. The Government reversed this decision in 1978 and the Iranian year reverted to what it was pre 1976.

Each carpet has 720,000 knots per sqm.

These 2 pieces came up for auction in Japan and I purchased them. I had to pay more than the upper estimate for them but for such provenance I thought it was worth it. Never will I find these again.

For the record, in 1979, soon after this state gift was made, the Shah and the Empress were deposed and they fled to the US.