Investigating the Factors Affecting Europeans’ Collection of the Carpets Weaved in the Safavid Era (the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries AH)

The tenth-century AH is considered as the “golden” era of rug weaving in the Safavid epoch due to the Safavids’ ability to bring this art-industry to an outstanding position and to introduce it to the Europeans through some measures. During this historical period, plenty of rugs were collected by Europeans in various ways, and now they are displayed in museums around the world. Familiarity with the collecting methods of these rugs and their way of presence in European collections and museums are among important issues and concerns of carpet studies and museum studies and add to the available knowledge in this field. Accordingly, this article intends to follow the most important methods and strategies of Europeans in acquiring and owning Iranian rugs; also, it tries to identify and introduce the factors affecting their access and collection of these rugs. In fact, the purpose of this study is to know what factors were involved in the formation of the process of collecting Safavid rugs by Europeans. To this end, and to find the answer to this question, a descriptive-analytical research method was used. The data were collected through library method and a qualitative method was deployed to analyze them. The findings and results of this study indicate that the tradition of offering and granting Safavid rugs to ambassadors and European courts, on the one hand, and the rug export industry were the most important factors in collecting carpets by Europeans in this period. In the meantime, and under the second factor, the role of Iran-Poland trade relations was specifically considered. Finally, it should be noted that a significant part of the reserves of European carpet collections was the result of the expansion of their political and trade relations with Iran in the Safavid Era.