When the influential Shah Tahmasp (1514-1576) closed many of the royal design workshops in Persia in the 1540s due to his lack of interest in the arts, many Persian artists went to India with their high level skills, workshop experience and sophisticated design vocabulary. Carpets during the Mughal period therefore derived their designs heavily from those of Persia, sometimes copying extant Persian carpet designs, but more often incorporating Indian design vocabulary.
During the reign of Shah Jahan (1628-1648) a definite Indian artistic style was developed and can be divided into three design groups (M.S. Dimand and J. Mailey, Oriental Rugs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1973, p. 119). The first, decorated with scenes of animals and gardens became known as the 'Paradise Garden' or 'Hunting' carpet, the second group showed the influence of Mughal miniature painting with pictorial and figural scenes, while the third was the symmetrical overall field design of the present lot. Formed by a delicate endless repeat of in-and-out palmettes linked by flowering spiraling vines, the field is enclosed by a border of thick lanceolate leaves that scroll around Persian-style palmettes.