Herat Carpet

A Herat-style carpet with wool pile on cotton and silk foundation. The inner field decorated with an allover bilaterally symmetrical pattern of light-brown intersecting spiralling tendrils forming a central lozenge-shaped configuration and bearing small rosettes, lotuses and composite lotus blossoms of varying sizes, all set against a burgundy red ground. Placed at the corners of the lozenge are four large lotus blossoms, turned in different directions, and alternately predominately coloured in light-blue and dark-brown, with four small lotuses at the center. Flanked on either side by another lozenge-shaped configuration of a slightly extended kind, the border containing a succession of shield-shaped panels, lobed medallions and cartouches, all outlined by a thin yellow band. The two former ones enclosing lotuses, the latter filled with bifurcating half-palmettes, the interstitial areas containing small yellow cloud bands amidst tiny blue curls, set against a dark brown ground. The guard bands both with intersecting foliate scrolls bearing lotuses alternating with three small rosettes, the inner guard band on an ivory ground, the outer guard band on a red ground.