About this piece
In Kashmiri weaving, a "shikargah" is a garden teeming with life, and this carpet tells that story from end to end. Two great trees of life rise from the riverbank, their branches heavy with pomegranates, apricots, plums and blossoms, and filled with perching birds. Below them a turquoise stream winds across the carpet, and its banks are crowded with life: a peacock in full display, strutting roosters, pheasants, ducks and slow-moving tortoises among irises and flowering shrubs.
Rather than a conventional border, the scene runs almost to the edges, like a tapestry or painted garden. It is finished with a narrow floral band at each end, an ivory binding and natural fringe.
The carpet is hand-knotted in silk on a silk foundation at a 24 x 24 density, roughly 576 knots per square inch, which is about 4.5 million knots across the whole carpet. At this fineness every leaf, feather and fruit is clearly drawn, and the silk catches the light so the garden seems to shimmer as you move around it.
A true collector's piece for a living or dining room, or as large-scale wall art.
