This item has been added to the Database within the Explore Islamic Art Collections project. Information is available in: English, Arabic.

Name of Object:

Ardabil Carpet

Location:

Los Angeles, United States of America

Holding Museum:

Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)

About Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles

Date of Object:

Hegira 946 / AD 1539-40

Museum Inventory Number:

53.50.2

Material(s) / Technique(s):

Wool knotted pile on silk plain weave foundation; asymmetrical knot

Dimensions:

718.8 x 400cm

Period / Dynasty:

Safavid

Provenance:

Possibly Tabriz, Iran

Description:

This spectacular carpet was made as one of a matched pair, and its mate survives in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. According to their identical signatures, the carpets were the work of Maqsud of Kashan, probably the one who prepared the designs and oversaw the project. They were royal carpets, perhaps commissioned for Shah Tahmasp (r. 1524–76), presumably for his ancestral shrine at Ardabil. Inscribed just above the dated signature of each carpet is a Persian couplet by the renowned fourteenth-century poet Hafiz: "I have no refuge in this world other than thy threshold / My head has no resting place other than this doorway."

How date and origin were established:

An inscription on the carpet dates it to Hegira 946 / AD 1539-40.

How Object was obtained:

Possibly in Ardabil until 1888 (sold to). Ziegler and Co., Manchester, until 1893 (sold to). Collection of Charles Tyson Yerkes (1837-1905), until unknown date (gifted to). Collection of Joseph Rafael de Lamar (1843-1918), until unknown date. Collection of Joseph Duveen (1869-1939), until unknown date. Collection of J. Paul Getty (1892-1976), until 1953 (gifted to); LACMA, gift of J. Paul Getty.

How provenance was established:

The inscription that dates the carpet indicates it was made early in the reign of Shah Tahmasp (1514-1576). The carpet and its mate were likely a royal commission, given the quality and size of the carpets, and the inscription’s reference to Maqsud of Kashan as a servant of the court. They therefore might have been made at a royal workshop in Tabriz, which was the seat of the Safavid court until 1555.

Selected bibliography:

Blair, Sheila, Text and Image in Medieval Persian Art, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014: 228-234, 270, figs. 6.2 and 6.4.
Komaroff, Linda, Lo Terrenal y lo divino: Arte islámico siglos VII al XIX Colección del Museo de Arte del Condado de Los Angeles, Santiago, Chile: Centro Cultural La Moneda, 2015: 196, 213.
Komaroff, Linda, Gift Tradition in Islamic Art, Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2012: 70-71.
Komaroff, Linda, Gifts of the Sultan: the Arts of Giving at the Islamic Courts, Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2011: 56-57 248, fig. 48
Komaroff, Linda, Islamic Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Rev. ed., Los Angeles: Museum Associates, 2005: 58, fig. 53.
Pal, Pratapaditya, Lentz, Thomas W., Canby, Sheila R., Binney, Edwin, 3rd, Denny, Walter B. and Markel, Stephen “Arts from Islamic Cultures: Los Angeles County Museum of Art,” Arts of Asia, 17 : 6 (1987): 74, fig. 1.

Citation of this web page:

LACMA Staff "Ardabil Carpet" in Explore Islamic Art Collections. Museum With No Frontiers, 2026.
https://islamicart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;EPM;us;Mus21;25;en

Prepared by: LACMA Staff

MWNF Working Number: US1 25