Knotted together through time and place: a reexamination of a seventeenth-century Khorasan carpet

Abstract

This thesis explores the life of a Khorasan carpet located in Winterthur Museum, Garden, and Library’s collection through the seventeenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. Although this carpet embodies a vast and complex history involving several imperial cultures and significant changes to its material structure, late nineteenth and early twentieth century Western perspectives have come to define its legacy and interpretation. This thesis critically examines the history of this Khorasan carpet to highlight the imperialist legacies that led to its creation and inform its continued interpretation. This analysis not only shows the historical value of this carpet, but also seeks to take a step away from the limited and problematic nature of its current interpretation and take a step towards decolonizing Western material culture epistemologies about Iranian carpets.