Mughal carpet

Mughal carpet
Mughal also spelled  Moghul  or  Mogul  
 any of the handwoven floor coverings made in India in the 16th and 17th centuries for the Mughal emperors and their courts. Aside from patterns in the Persian manner, a series of distinctively Indian designs were developed, including scenic and landscape carpets; animal carpets with spirited chases backward and forward across the field; elaborate architectural latticeworks in the Italian manner, with floral content; and several magnificent prayer rugs with a prominent central flowering plant. Characteristic of the floral patterns is common use of trailing blossoms such as wisteria or elongated bunches of grapes.

      Many carpets, including a series of prayer rugs that may have been produced in Kashmir, have densely packed millefleur patterns and are possibly of a later date. Fine-quality Mughal carpets, with the warp in bands of contrasting colours and with pile of such extremely fine wool that it is sometimes taken for silk on a silken foundation, have the tightest and most delicate knotting found among antique Orientals. The prayer rugs with a central flowering plant motif, for example, have approximately 2,000 knots to the square inch (300 per square centimetre), and a fragmentary lattice rug in the Textile Museum in Washington, D.C., has more than 2,500. Most Mughal rugs, however, have a foundation of cotton. Mughal carpets are thought to have been made in Lahore, Āgra, and perhaps Fatehpur Sīkri. One of the most notable is the Girdlers' Carpet, in Girdlers' Hall, London.

* * *


Universalium. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем сделать НИР

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Carpet — For other uses, see Carpet (disambiguation). The Azerbaijani carpet, a UNESCO Masterpiece of Intangible Heritage of Humanity …   Wikipedia

  • Mughal (tribe) — Mughal Total population 2,666,000[1] Regions with significant populations •  India • …   Wikipedia

  • rug and carpet — Any decorative textile normally made of a thick material and intended as a floor covering. Floor coverings made of plaited rushes date from the 5th or 4th millennium BC. Carpets were first made in central and western Asia as coverings for earthen …   Universalium

  • Islamic art — Arabesque inlays at the Mughal Agra Fort …   Wikipedia

  • Islamic arts — Visual, literary, and performing arts of the populations that adopted Islam from the 7th century. Islamic visual arts are decorative, colourful, and, in religious art, nonrepresentational; the characteristic Islamic decoration is the arabesque.… …   Universalium

  • Lahore — Urdu: لاہور Punjabi: لہور …   Wikipedia

  • South Asian arts — Literary, performing, and visual arts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. Myths of the popular gods, Vishnu and Shiva, in the Puranas (ancient tales) and the Mahabharata and Ramayana epics, supply material for representational and… …   Universalium

  • Sheikh Zayed Mosque — Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque Coordinates …   Wikipedia

  • Safavid art — refers to art in Persia (Iran) during the dynasty of the same name (1501 1722), a high point for the art of the book and architecture; other art at the time included ceramics, metal and glass. While of course nourished by Persian culture, the… …   Wikipedia

  • Afghanistan — /af gan euh stan /, n. a republic in central Asia, NW of India and E of Iran. 23,738,085; 250,000 sq. mi. (647,500 sq. km). Cap.: Kabul. * * * Afghanistan Introduction Afghanistan Background: Afghanistan s recent history is characterized by war… …   Universalium

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”