Antique Persian Mashad Amoghli Carpets

The History of the Amoghli Carpets

In the 1900s, the Amoghli workshop, run by the Amoghli brothers (Abdol Mohammad and Ali Khan) was lauded as one of the world’s largest and most renowned workshops manufacturing Persian carpets. The Amagholi brothers’ magnificent Persian rugs were favored by Pahlavi shahs and royalties, including Reza Shah, and were used to decorate the Sa’dabad Palace in northern Tehran and the Niavaran Palace.

Mashad City, Iran

The city of Mashad in northern Iran is known as one of Iran’s earliest carpet-weaving cities. It is believed that one of Perez Topkapi‘s oldest prayer rugs was made between 1550 and 1556 in Mashad. In the early 1900s, Mashad was home not just to the Amoghli brothers’ workshop, but to many other Persian carpet manufacturing businesses as well.

Today, Mashad continues to be a leading manufacturer of huge carpets with medallion motifs, branded as Mashad carpets. From Mashad’s oldest carpet manufacturing workshop, the Soltan Ibrahim Mirza workshop, to newer companies, like the Amoghli, Amoughli, Amu-oghli or Emoghli, workshop, the city thrives on carpet exports. Carpet enthusiasts worldwide may recognize the names of other workshops that were started by master weavers like Abbasgholi Saber, Khamenei, Khadivy, Zarbaf, Zarrineh and Makhmalbaf.

Amoghli’s Carpet Weaving History

Between 1900 and 1920, the Amoghli Brothers’ workshop produced the bulk of its master-woven carpets. Specializing in Persian carpet cart, each rug Amoghli manufactured was woven with fine wool, silk, and/or cotton, and signed by Amoghli. His carpets are recognizable because they typically have 3-5 centimeter-wide blue borders on the long edges of the carpets. What also sets these carpets apart from those made by less proficient weavers are the high-density knots and innovative patterns.

Amoghil and Abbasgholi Saber

Abbasgholi Saber is another well-known weaver and workshop owner. He began his career by working for Amoghli, and eventually – after Amoghli’s death – built a business and a name for himself. Saber lived from 1911 to 1977, and in that time he established five workshops with a combined total of 300 looms and 1,500 workers. Sadly for Saber, not one of his nine children chose to continue in the weaving business after his death in 1977.

Amoghli’s Silk and Wool Rugs

Mashad’s Amoghli workshops produced a large supply of rugs with silk borders, cotton foundations and wool piles with the still-popular designs from the 1940s. Classically woven with fine weave patterning and far-off knot piles, these designs boasted as many as 1,369 knots per square inch, compared to the standard density of 900 knots per square inch.

Although most Amoghli woven carpets were produced for use, some were made to be decorative items to hang on walls. These display-ready rugs were famous for their complex motifs and varying themes, including images taken from nature (like trees and flowers) and geometric shapes like medallions. Commonly, color-matched blue or purple silk flat weave, like a kilim rug weaving technique , was used to border these classic rugs, which were typically large and eye-catching.