2-748-327 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Woolen carpet with millefleurs decoration, early 1600s. This tour de force of Mughal weaving sets symmetrically intertwined flowering vines against a deep wine-red ground. The small-scale flowers that fill the ground space appear to be so numerous that this type of pattern is given the name millefleurs, "thousand flowers" in French, after a type of medieval European tapestry pattern. The use of pashmina wool indicates that this work was made in Kashmir, near the foothills of the Himalayas in northern India. They lend a silken sheen that augments the carpet’s luxurious quality. Mughal carpets of this type were prized by Europeans and Americans during the 18th and 19th centuries.