What is a Qum rug?
A Qum rug is a hand-knotted Persian silk carpet woven in Qum, central Iran, often exceeding 1,000 knots per square inch. Qum weaving is one of the few Persian traditions that has used silk as the primary fiber rather than wool — producing the finest, most luminous Persians ever made.
What is a Qum rug?
The Persian silk tradition.
Qum (sometimes Qom) is a Shi’a pilgrimage city about 90 miles south of Tehran. Qum weaving is unique among the great Persian traditions for centering on silk as the primary fiber rather than wool. The pile, warp, and weft of a standard Qum are all silk; the rug has the cool hand of a heavy textile, catches light differently on each side, and rewards close looking the way a painting does.
Knot counts run 500 to more than 1,200 per square inch on workshop pieces, among the highest in the rug world. Compositions are unusually varied: pictorial hunting scenes, gardens, prayer niches, calligraphic Quranic verse borders, and classical medallion designs all appear on Qum looms.
The youngest of the great traditions.
Qum is by far the youngest of the great Persian weaving traditions. Although Qum has been a sacred Shi’a city for over a thousand years, it had no rug-weaving heritage until the 1930s, when investors brought master weavers from Kashan, Isfahan, and Tabriz to establish workshops. The first Qum rugs appeared on the market in the late 1930s and 1940s.
Qum compensated for its short history by specializing in silk-on-silk construction and by recruiting the finest designers from across Iran. By the 1960s, Qum had established itself as the silk-Persian capital, a position it retains today. Signed Qum master pieces — Jamshidi, Mosavi, Rajabian — have become collectibles in their own right within fifty years of being woven.
How a Qum is built.
A standard Qum is silk on silk: silk warp, silk weft, silk pile, knotted with the asymmetric Persian knot at 500 to more than 1,200 knots per square inch. Each silk filament is microns thick; a 3×5 Qum at workshop standard contains more than 5 million individual knots. Weaving a single Qum often takes a year or more.
Dyes are predominantly vegetable, with stable early synthetics introduced from the 1950s onward. The palette runs to jewel tones: indigo, madder red, saffron, soft sage greens, and ivory. Silk pile catches light differently along its grain — the same Qum rug looks different walking past it from each side.
How to identify a Qum.
- Design
Pictorial, garden, prayer, hunting, and calligraphic compositions are all common — Qum drawing is one of the most varied of all Persian traditions. Many pieces are signed by the master designer.
- Palette
Jewel tones with a luminous, almost glowing quality. Ivory, indigo, soft red, sage, gold. Silk catches light differently on each side of the rug.
- Border
Fine palmette-and-vine main border, often on ivory or indigo, flanked by narrow guards. Drawing is exquisitely fine.
- Pile
Short, tightly clipped silk pile. The pile is so fine the rug has the hand of a heavy textile rather than a carpet. Direction-shifted reflections give the field two completely different appearances.
- Fringe
Silk fringe, often plaited. Lustrous and immediately silk to the touch. Clear evidence of the all-silk construction.
Four variants you will see.
Qum pieces are typically scatter sizes (2×3 up to 5×7); silk Qum room-size pieces are rare and exceptionally valuable. Most Qums are wall-art or low-traffic decorative.
Pictorial Qum
Hunt scenes, gardens, ancient Persian motifs. Often signed. Among the most valuable Qum pieces.
Prayer Qum
Mihrab niche design, often with calligraphic borders. Devotional pieces, frequently signed.
Garden Qum
Quartered garden layout with stylized cypress, tulips, irises, and pools. A classical Persian composition.
Wool-and-Silk Qum
Wool pile with silk highlights. Less luminous than full silk but still very fine.
Caring for a Qum rug.
Silk Qum rugs are the most delicate Persians we wash. They are washed individually in our atelier, never alongside other rugs, with cooler water and the most pH-neutral soap we use. Every color is dye-tested before water touches the rug. Silk Qums receive the antique wash regardless of the rug’s age, and our dedicated silk-rug-cleaning protocol. Full Persian process on our Persian rug cleaning page.
Closest cousins to a Qum.
Three Persian silk traditions every Qum collector should know.
Tabriz
Silk Tabriz pieces are the closest cousin to Qum in fine silk Persian weaving.
Read the Tabriz guideKashan
Silk Kashan court pieces share the silk-on-silk construction at workshop quality.
Read the Kashan guideIsfahan
Silk Isfahan rugs sit alongside Qum at the very top of the Persian silk hierarchy.
Read the Isfahan guideLetters from across the Northeast.
A few of the rugs we've cared for — and the families who trusted us with them.
“They returned an heirloom Tabriz — the colors look exactly as my grandmother described them.”
“A 1920s Heriz I thought was beyond saving came back better than the day my parents bought it.”
“Our clients trust us with eight-figure homes. Horizon is the only atelier I send their rugs to.”
More from Horizon.
Other ateliers, every service we offer, and the rest of our story — a few directions to explore.
Bring us your Qum.
Pictorial, prayer, garden, or signed master — whichever silk Qum you own, we hand-wash individually with the most cautious protocol we offer. Complimentary pickup from Manhattan, the Hamptons, Westchester, Greenwich, and Stamford.
By hand · By the Cohen family · By appointment