The Rug Library

The paisley pattern is built on the boteh or buta, a teardrop-shaped motif with a curved upper tip that is generally described as Persian in origin.

The English name 'paisley' comes from the Scottish town of Paisley, a textile centre where weavers reproduced the Kashmir boteh design on jacquard looms.

Flowering plants were a favourite subject of Mughal artists and appear often in carpets of the period, echoing their use in painting and architectural decoration.

Qilins, Chinese mythological beasts, appear in some early Mughal carpets; the Met traces these motifs, along with cloud bands, to Safavid Persian art.

Persian garden carpets combine a bird's-eye view of the classic four-part garden, or chahar bagh, with birds and trees shown in profile.

The Jaipur garden carpet shows a chahar bagh with a central tank surrounded by animals catching fish, with streams dividing the garden into plots worked in five colours.

On one celebrated Mughal single-plant rug in the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection, half-cypress trees frame the niche instead of architectural columns.

The cloud band is a wavy, ribbon-like stylisation of a cloud from Chinese art, in use since at least the Han period, that later became common in Persian and other oriental rugs.

Garden and hunting themes supply many carpet motifs, including songbirds such as the nightingale, peacocks, lions, cheetahs and deer, as well as Chinese dragons and qilin.

The buta takes its name from the Persian boteh, meaning shrub or flowering plant; in India it has been used since at least the 16th century, mainly on Kashmiri shawls popular with the Mughals.

The badaam ('almond') motif, similar in shape to the boteh and kairi, is linked with the Kashmir Valley, where it developed after the Mughals arrived in the 16th century.

Britannica notes that mounted huntsmen are the most common human figures on carpets, though musicians also appear.

Motifs on Indo-Persian carpets include palmettes with 'open' centres and cypress trees alternating with palmettes in the border, each cypress flanked by sprays of tiny blossoms.

Besides geometric forms, Navalgund dhurries of Karnataka include motifs such as the peacock (mor or navilu) and pagadi aata, a traditional Indian dice game.

The Wagner Garden Carpet's design stresses movement, with branches swaying, water flowing, and animals leaping or in flight among cypress and plane trees.