Hong Kong Palace Museum | Wonders of Imperial Carpets: Masterpieces from the Museum of Islamic Art, Doha

Since the Timurid period (about 1370–1507), a central medallion with cartouches and pendants has often been used to decorate a variety of objects, such as textiles, bookbindings, and illuminated manuscripts. The design was standardised by the Safavid period (1501–1736). Pattern sheets were created in royal workshops and dispersed by travelling artists and craftspeople.

The decoration on this carpet is symmetrically arranged. Continuous vegetal patterns and cloud-band motifs are set against a background of intertwining flowers and stems. Symmetrical patterns like this were easy to reproduce because carpet weavers needed to copy only one quarter of the full pattern, which was then repeated.

The brilliant red of this carpet comes, not from the widely available madder root, but from an expensive insect-derived dye that was used in most high-quality Safavid carpets. This carpet was created at the royal workshop in Tabriz, an important centre for producing knotted carpets for the Safavid court and the other elites in the 16th century.

This copy of the Qur’an was produced for Shah Sulayman Safavi (r. 1666–1694). A rare feature of this Qur’an is the impression it bears of his personal seal.

The cream-coloured pages are highly polished and heavily sprinkled with gold. Given the exceptional quality of the execution, this may have been the Shah’s private copy of the Qur’an.

A unified court style for different forms of art can be seen in the frontispiece of this Qur’an and in the Rothschild carpet. The central medallion is the shamseh (little sun), with pendants above and below it. A quarter of the shamseh decorates each corner. The design exemplifies the beauty of symmetry.

The central medallion of this carpet depicts a pond with ducks. Blooming trees, lotus blossoms, and birds surround the pond. The background has tendrils, cloud bands, and the scene of a lion attacking a bull.

This carpet has a royal provenance because it was a gift from Shah Sulayman Safavi (r. 1666–1694) to General Francesco Morosini (1619–1694). Born into one of the most powerful Venetian noble families, Morosini was a one of the greatest sea-captains of his time; he later became the doge of Venice.

The Safavids established diplomatic and trade relations with the courts in Central and South Asia, as well as courts in Europe. High-quality carpets were prized possessions of the elites and were among the gifts the Safavids gave their potential allies.

This highly ornate basin would have been used together with an ewer to wash hands at banquets, or festivals. According to the inscriptions on the base, the basin belonged to Hassan bin Ayyub, who was perhaps a member of the ruling family of Egypt and Syria.

The Arabic calligraphy lends a sense of monumentality to the basin. The cursive thuluth script, often used in building decorations, is written inside the vessel; kufic and naskh scripts are written on the outside. The kufic script is formed with straight and angular lines, while the naskh script is known for its readability and balanced proportions.

The twelve signs of the zodiac encircle the exterior of the basin. They are represented again on the bottom of the interior, together with the sun in the middle and six planets around it. Along the flared lip are a falconer, a horseman holding a bird by the neck, and a rider who is about to release a cheetah to hunt a rabbit.

Hunting was an expression of royal power. Hunting birds, notably hawks and falcons, were cherished across the Islamic world. Birds and other hunting animals, such as cheetahs, horses, and dogs, were used as gifts in diplomacy.

Almost 16 metres long, this carpet may have been woven for the palaces of the sultans in Hyderabad, capital of the kingdom of Golconda in southern India. This region is famous for the diamonds from the Golconda mines, which generated incredible wealth for the Quṭb Shāhī dynasty (1518–1687), the Muslim rulers of Golconda.

The symmetrical garden composition with geometric shapes, stylised fish, and vegetal motifs is typical of the traditional paradisical iconography in Persian art. In the centre is a fishpond represented as a medallion. Along the borders are decorations like those in illuminated manuscripts of the same period.

Not only does this carpet exemplify intercultural artistic exchange, but it also exudes imperial grandeur. Extraordinarily long durbar (audience) carpets like this one were used at the Mughal court for ceremonial events. In the 20th century, this carpet became known as the Kevorkian Carpet after one of its recent owners, the collector and art dealer Hagop Kevorkian (1872–1962).

Produced at the Jingdezhen kiln, this lidded tureen and plate is part of a famous table service emblematic of the trade relations between the Qing and Ottoman dynasties. The cartouches are inscribed with verses from the Qur’an in the naskh script, which was often used to copy books and manuscripts because of its simplicity and clarity. The crescent moon and star motifs suggest that the tableware may have been for members of the Ottoman royalty or the Istanbul elite. The Topkapı Palace Museum has a large quantity of porcelains from the same table service, including two tureens, two deep plates, forty-two bowls, fifty-three lids, seven cups, and sixty-four dishes.