Sickle-Leaf Kerman

An Afghan Sickle-Leaf Kerman rug, knotted by hand by master weavers in northern Afghanistan with hand-carded, hand-spun, vegetable-dyed wool.

Inspired by the celebrated Clark Sickle-Leaf Carpet, a masterpiece of Safavid weaving created in Kerman during the early seventeenth century, when Persian carpet design reached extraordinary levels of refinement under Shah Abbas I. The original sold at Sotheby’s in 2013 for $33.765 million, establishing the world auction record for a carpet. Against a deep indigo field, sweeping serrated sickle leaves, palmettes, cypress trees, flowering branches, and scrolling vines intertwine in a richly layered composition, capturing the remarkable movement and complexity of the original Safavid design.