Famous Rugs

Ardabil Carpets

• The Ardabil carpets are a pair of carpets woven in 1539 to 1540 by Maqsud of Kashan. Both rugs are the exact same size, approximately 17-by-36 feet and are composed of the same material: silk. Each carpet features 300 knots per square inch. Currently, the more damaged rug is located at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, while the complete rug is located at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The damaged rug is only missing the borders, which were used to repair the rug in London.

"Carpet with Animals"

• Located at the Louvre Museum in France, the rug dubbed "Carpet with Animals" is a Persian rug that features a rare indigo blue background. The rug is composed entirely of silk, including the base from which the pile stems. "Carpet with Animals" also originated from Kashan, a part of the Persian Empire, and dates back to the 16th century.

Chancellerie

• The Chancellerie rug was woven at the famous Gobelins Tapestry Manufactory, starting in 1728 and finishing in 1730. It is composed of wool and silk, with a design that is based on a cartoon by designer and painter, Guy-Louis Vernansal. The tapestry is approximately 11-by-8 feet. Today, it is located at the J. Paul Getty Museum but as of May 2011, it is not currently on display.

Nine Heroes Tapestry

• The Nine Heroes Tapestry features a design that represents nine heroes: three Christian (Charlemagne, Arthur, Godfrey), three pagan (Hector, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar) and three Hebrew (David, Joshua, Judas Maccabeus). The rug was made sometime around 1385, possibly by Nicholas Bataille, though this is uncertain. As of May 2011, it is currently on display in New York City at the Cloisters, a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Pazyryk Rug

• One of the oldest, most well-known examples of a Persian rug is the Pazyryk rug. It was found in 1949 by an archaeologist near the outer edges of Mongolia. The Pazyryk rug had been frozen solid, which allowed it to survive for so long. It contains 225 knots per square inch, which is not extravagant when compared with other Persian rugs (some of which may have upwards of 1,000 knots per square inch). However, it is the age of this rug that makes it historically significant. It is currently on display in the Hermitage Museum in Russia.

Sancho's Feast on the Isle of Barataria

• Sancho's Feast is from a series of rugs known as the Story of Don Quixote series. It, like the Chancellerie rug, was woven at the famed Gobelins Tapestry Manufactory. The design for this particular carpet is modeled after a Charles-Antoine Coypel painting. It is larger than the Chancellerie rug, measuring approximately 12-by-16 feet in size. The Sancho's Feast carpet was manufactured between 1770 and 1772.

Spring of Khosrow Carpet

• Also referred to as the Winter of Khosrow, this rug is regarded as potentially being one of the "most costly and magnificent of all time," according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. It was made for the Ctesiphon palace of King Khosrow the first, who reigned from A.D. 531 through 579 The carpet, which was a model for future garden carpets, consisted of a silk, silver, gold and jeweled design that represented the flowering of spring. When the Arabs took Ctesiphon, the rug was cut up into small pieces and divided among the soldiers.

Unicorn Tapestries

• This series of tapestries are thought to have been designed in France but made in nearby Germany. These rugs represent the fight between the mythical unicorn and humans. There are seven carpets in this series, with the seventh being the most recognized: a representation of a unicorn in captivity. Like the Nine Heroes Tapestries, the Unicorn Tapestries are located at the Cloisters branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.