Floral Carpet

A Mughal blossom carpet with lateral orientation. Mughal carpets were produced in several different centers, recognizable by their distinctive method of construction, materials, and use of color. One of the most interesting groups of Mughal carpets is typified in this example. The colors, including a vivid trio of greens appropriate for a design of plants, are almost always displayed on a rich crimson ground colored with the insect dye known as lac. The design consists of rows of flowering plants, sometimes startlingly accurate from a botanical point of view, and the carpet was almost certainly intended as part of a suite or matched group of carpets designed to be placed in a particular arrangement within a particular architectural space.