Tabriz

Tabriz sits at the historical crossing between Persia and Anatolia, and its carpets carry that position: designs move confidently between formal medallion compositions, hunting scenes and pictorial work.

The city's master workshops weave on cotton foundations with a symmetrical knot, which gives the pile a firm, orderly surface. Quality is graded by raj — the knot count across a fixed width — and the better ateliers reach densities that allow genuinely painterly drawing.