Style
Sultanabad
Every piece in this style, across all of our collections. Narrow them down by size and price.
- Under 6 x 9
- Runners
- 6 x 9
- 8 x 10
- 9 x 12
- 10 x 14
- 12 x 15
- Over 12 x 15
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Stories from the Sultanabad Archive
Essays, artist dialogues, and provenance notes drawn from Rug & Kilim’s editorial desk.
How the World’s Most Serious Art Spaces Are Rewriting the Rules of the Floor and the Contemporary Home
There is a room at Hauser & Wirth Somerset; the gallery that occupies a converted farmhouse in the English countryside, where Pipilotti Rist installations have shared walls with Phyllida Barlow sculptures and where the building itself feels like an argument against the idea that serious art requires a white cube to be taken seriously, where a single large antique textile lies on the stone floor beneath work of radical contemporary ambition. It does not announce itself. It simply holds the room together with the authority of an object that has been doing exactly this, in exactly this way, for several centuries longer than the art above it has existed. The artists whose work hangs on those walls have spent their careers thinking about surface, material, and the relationship between an object and the space it occupies. The carpet understood all of this before any of them picked up a brush.
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Designing Across Eras: Persian, Art Deco & Scandinavian Influences for the Modern Interior
There is a quiet misconception in contemporary interiors: that rugs belong to style categories, that they serve periods, that they follow trends. At Rug & Kilim, we see something different. We see a continuum — a lineage that begins in imperial courts, evolves through European ateliers, collides with modernism, and extends into the custom future of today’s architectural spaces. Textiles have never merely decorated history. They have shaped it. What follows is not a chronology of rugs. It is a narrative of power, authorship, reform, and reinvention — and why designing across eras, rather than within them, is the most intelligent way forward.
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The Persian Carpet and the Making of Modern Interior: Power, Trade and Redefining Cultural Prestige
Materials from our Books on Persian Rugs. Available at Volumes by Rug & Kilim >> By the late nineteenth century, the Persian carpet had become an essential component of the European interior. Not decorative. Structural. As Qajar Persia expanded trade relationships with Britain, France, and the United States, carpets from Tabriz, Isfahan, Kashan, Kerman, and Sultanabad entered Western markets in unprecedented numbers. This was organized production responding to foreign demand. Workshops adapted scale, palette, and composition for European rooms while maintaining Persian essence. Architecture, Empire, and the Rise of the Cultivated Room The European salon — particularly in Paris and London — required more than furniture and painting. It required cohesion, and Persian carpets provided it.
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Rug of the Week V: A 1920s Lion Mahal Rug and Persia’s Folk-Imperial Dialogue
Not all rugs whisper beauty. Some confront, some provoke, and some stand strong of their age. This 1920–30 Persian Mahal lion carpet belongs emphatically to the latter. Its scale alone commands attention, but it is its audacity of imagery—two lions poised across a crimson ground, punctuated by talismanic eyes—that distinguishes it from its peers. What could have been another workshop carpet for export markets instead asserts itself as an emblem of power, politics, and folk poetics. It is not only a rug to be admired, but one to be read. The Provenance: Mahal as a Crossroads Mahal rugs occupy a fascinating place in Persian weaving history. Located in northwestern Iran, the Mahal region became particularly significant during the late 19th and early 20th centuries as European demand reshaped Persian textile production. Western markets craved large-scale carpets for townhouses and institutions, and Mahal—situated near Sultanabad, a major weaving hub—supplied. These rugs often combined refined city-border designs with the looser, more organic hand of village weavers.
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A Comprehensive Collectors’ Guide to Antique and Vintage Persian Rugs
The legacy of Persian rugs stretches back millennia, with historical references dating to the 4th century B.C. Xenophon, the Greek historian, marveled at the "soft rugs on which the Persians sit," marking one of the earliest recorded appreciations of these masterpieces. Explore More >> Persian rugs, with their rich history have long been revered as the pinnacle of floor covering artistry. These exquisite textiles, steeped in centuries of tradition, continue to captivate collectors, designers, and connoisseurs worldwide, gracing the most prestigious spaces from opulent palaces to renowned museums. This ancient craft has evolved over centuries, with each era contributing to the styles and techniques that define Persian rugs today.
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History and Significance of 19th-Century Persian Sultanabad Rugs
A beautifully crafted Oriental rug never goes out of style and can be surprisingly versatile in all kinds of homes. Rug & Kilim's Sultanabad Collection With thousands of options in terms of color, fabric, scale, and style, there’s an Oriental rug out there for every space, whether you’re looking to accent an opulent English-inspired library or a sleek modern living room. Antique Sultanabad carpets are some of the most coveted Persian rugs. Examples from the late 19th and early 20th centuries often feature subtle color palettes and beautiful trellis designs, making them an ideal foundation for any room. The design and color combination and the condition of these carpets make it one of a kind.
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