Diplomacy in Silk

By Heidi Noroozy

Polonaise carpet in the
Iranian Carpet Museum

Let’s take a trip back in time. We’ll set our time machine for early 17^th-century Isfahan at the height of the Safavid Golden Age and tour the city’s blue-tiled mosques, arcaded bazaars, and ornate bridges when they were still brand new. Maybe we’ll catch a polo match with Shah Abbas I and cheer his favorite team from our seats on the high balcony of the Ali Qapu Palace. Best of all, we’ll sink our bare feet into sumptuous wool and silk rugs and feel their soft pile tickle our toes. After all, like me, Shah Abbas had a special place in his heart for Persian carpets. Not only did he fill his palaces with the finest examples, he also made them an important element of trade and diplomacy.

Shah Abbas’s military accomplishments included consolidating a fragmented Persian kingdom and defending it against encroaching neighbors. The king also bolstered his country’s economy by intensifying trade between Persia and Europe, whose leaders he viewed as natural allies against his enemies, the Ottoman Turks. Abbas developed close ties with England’s East India Company by giving them special trade privileges and exchanging silk for English broadcloth. He also sent a large shipment of fine silk to King Philip of Spain and Portugal in an attempt to persuade him to give up the strategic island of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, which the Portuguese had captured from the Persians nearly a century earlier. (This mission failed so completely that the Safavid ambassador to King Philip's court was executed when he returned home to Persia.) Not only silk yarn and cloth but luxury carpets also often made their way onto merchant ships and into diplomatic pouches.

Polonaise detail

Some of the finest carpets to come out of Isfahan’s royal workshops belong to a group that scholars today classify as “Polonaise.” The name, a French word meaning “Polish,” is a bit misguided, based on a misunderstanding (more about that in a bit), but Abbas spared no expense in commissioning these unique carpets to dazzle trade partners both at home and abroad. The carpets were made of silk in bold, vibrant colors and often had brocaded areas fashioned from threads wrapped in real gold or silver. Although the foundations were usually cotton to lend the structure durability, separate silk fringes would be sewn onto the ends, giving the appearance that the entire rug was made of the more costly material.

Polonaise weavers used motifs that are still recognizable in modern Persian carpets, with medallions in the center, twisting vines along the borders, and floral designs against contrasting fields that look like someone scattered a flower bouquet across a pool of calm water. Other Polonaise designs were more typically European, often incorporating emblems associated with Western royalty, which has led scholars to believe that they were commissioned and made to the customer’s specifications.

Polonaise carpet with the
Polish royal crest
(Residenz Museum, Munich)

But these Western influences also created the misunderstanding over the name “Polonaise.” Over several centuries, the carpets’ origins were forgotten, as many didn’t survive the ravages of time. When two antique rugs owned by Poland’s Prince Czartoryski appeared in a Paris exhibition in 1878, they were labeled as tapis polonaise (Polish carpets). This source was supported by the fact that their motifs and materials were not seen as being typically Persian. And these particular rugs featured the coat of arms of a noble Polish family worked right into the design.

Although some historians questioned the carpets’ European roots right from the start, many prominent textile experts persisted in attributing them to Polish carpet factories well into the 20^th century. But contemporary accounts show that Sigismund Vasa III of Poland commissioned eight carpets in 1601, and two years later Shah Abbas sent another to Marino Grimani, the Doge of Venice, as a diplomatic gift. Today, nearly everyone agrees that most Polonaise carpets were woven in royal Safavid workshops in the Persian rug weaving centers of Isfahan, Yazd, and Kashan from the time of Shah Abbas’s Golden Age right up until a devastating Afghan invasion put an end to Safavid rule in 1722. And yet the Polish-inspired name has stuck.

Polonaise carpets today are rare, with only around 300 of them known to exist. Some of these rugs belong to prominent museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, The Residenz Museum in Munich, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Three of the photos I've featured on this page are of a Polonaise carpet I saw in the Iranian Carpet Museum in Tehran. At the time, I was writing my first mystery novel, which centered around the theft of a rare Safavid carpet. I took so many pictures of the Polonaise that I’m sure the guard suspected me of planning a forgery.

Border detail

The surviving Polonaise carpets leave only a hint of their former glory. Many have been worn down to the foundation, making them look more like loosely woven fabric than knotted pile rugs. The once vivid colors have faded to pastels (these dyes apparently adhere better to wool than to silk), and often the gold and silver brocade is either missing or tarnished. But you can still make out the lovely designs and with a bit of imagination reconstruct the vibrant colors in your mind. These carpets are prized as highly today as they were 500 years ago, with some commanding six-figure prices at auction.

Before we climb back aboard our time machine for the return journey to the 21^st century, let’s take a side trip to the Shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf (present day Iraq), where we’ll slip off our shoes and sink our feet into the soft silk of another of Shah Abbas’s precious commissions: a red and gold Polonaise that he presented to the shrine as a gift. Perhaps it was even another piece of diplomacy, since such a lovely carpet must have gone a long way toward unlocking the gates of heaven to its donor for his generosity. I hope so, anyway. Shah Abbas and his successors deserve a fine reward for giving the world such beautiful treasures.

Shah Abbas and The Remaking of an Empire

Shah Abbas I

The first time I visited Esfahan, I was captivated by a slogan flashing on a neon sign outside my hotel window every night. Esfahan, nesf-e jahan, it proclaimed to the dark neighborhood: Esfahan – half the world. The words had me imagining a cosmopolitan metropolis whose streets were filled with traders from around the world, intellectuals arguing the finer points of philosophy in a cacophony of languages, tourists thronging museums, mosques, and palaces. In reality, I didn’t see a single foreigner (besides myself) in all the days my husband and I spent exploring the city.

But there was a time when Esfahan’s bold claim did ring true. Five hundred years ago, it was the heart of a vibrant empire, an economic, cultural, and political powerhouse built by an ambitious and visionary king.

Shah Abbas I, who ruled Iran from 1587 to 1629 during the Safavid Dynasty, was sixteen when he seized power in a coup against his father, Mohamed Mirza, a weak-willed monarch who had allowed the country to descend into political chaos. Shah Mohamed had sat by as the Ottomans seized vast territories in the west, and he ceded much of the northeastern Khorasan province to the Uzbeks. Infighting between the powerful Qizilbash tribesmen, who governed the provinces and controlled the military, undermined the government’s central authority.

The new king set about rectifying his father’s mistakes, ruling Iran with a keen sense of military strategy, political savvy, and a combination of compassion and ruthlessness. He beat back the Ottomans and Uzbeks, strengthened central authority, reformed the military and government institutions, opened up trade with the West, and launched what is now recognized as the Golden Age of Iranian art and culture.

Naghsh-e Jahan Square, Esfahan

In 1597, Shah Abbas relocated his capital from the northern city of Qazvin to the more centrally situated Esfahan, which was better suited for overseeing his empire (encompassing present day Iran, Iraq, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan as well as parts of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Turkey) and afforded more convenient access to the southern trading ports. He built a new city, partly with the help of Armenian artisans he’d forcibly resettled from his northeastern border to areas in the nation’s interior to establish a buffer between Iran and the Ottoman Empire. By depopulating the region, Abbas prevented the Ottomans from using the Armenian villages to launch attacks against Iran. Yes, he could be ruthless.

Shah Abbas’s military, economic, and political strategies were all intertwined and aimed at creating a strong nation. Peace in the border regions brought prosperity that allowed art and culture to flourish. The end to internal strife strengthened the king’s authority and helped fill the royal coffers, which gave Abbas the financial means to establish trade with the West and gain the support of his people. He saw Europe as a natural ally in his ongoing struggle against the Ottomans, and the flourishing silk trade he established with the Dutch and the British melded European economic interests with his own desire for stability.

Contemporary accounts describe Abbas as a highly intelligent and intensely curious man, a compassionate ruler who honored and valued human rights, freedom of religion, and education. He used Christian Armenian merchants to conduct the silk trade with the West on the principle that Europeans would be able to relate better to followers of their own faith. He built universities and hospitals and welcomed foreigners and their ideas to his court, something that would have been unthinkable in the days of his predecessors.

Vank Cathedral, New Julfa, Esfahan
Photo by Raeabileah

Although you could argue that the forcible relocation of Armenians was anything but compassionate (thousands died on the march south), once in Esfahan, these new residents enjoyed a certain amount of freedom and autonomy. Abbas built them their own town named New Julfa and allowed them to largely govern themselves, own property, and practice their religion (he even built them a beautiful cathedral that still stands today) – all notions that were rare among Muslim leaders of the time.

Unfortunately, Abbas’s compassion didn’t extend to his own family. Obsessed with fears that his progeny would overthrow him in a violent coup, he had his eldest son assassinated and two others blinded. According to the beliefs of the time, a blind man could not become king.

Subsequent Iranian rulers undermined many of Shah Abbas’s accomplishments, and the country again lost vast territories in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, this time to Afghanistan and Russia. But the ghost of this charismatic Safavid leader lives on in Esfahan, where the blue-tiled mosques and richly decorated palaces he built still sparkle in the desert sun, and his ornate bridges link two halves of the city across the Zayandeh Rud, a river (aptly named the Giver of Life) that snakes through the arid landscape. The city may not be host to half the world anymore, but it does mark a milestone in Iranian history – when a charismatic monarch unified his fragmented nation under the banner of religious tolerance and prosperity.