Investigating the Effective Factors in Collecting Carpets by European in the Qajar Period

The special conditions of the Qajar period have made it possible for Europeans to obtain Iranian carpets more than before. During this period, Europeans interested in Iranian rugs took advantage of the unique opportunities available to them to create, develop, and complete the assets of their rug collections in the best way. Familiarity with the fields of creating these opportunities on the one hand and knowledge of European strategy regarding the acquisition of Iranian carpets in this period are among the important and contemporary issues and concerns of carpet studies and of course museum studies and can complete our knowledge in this field. Accordingly, this article intends to follow the most important methods and strategies of Europeans in acquiring and owning Iranian rugs to identify and introduce the factors affecting their access to these rugs and their storage. In fact, in this research, we want to know what factors were involved in the formation of the process of collecting Qajar rugs by Europeans. For this purpose and to find the answer to this question, in this article, we have used the descriptive-analytical research method. We also collected our data in a library method and used a qualitative method to analyze them. Findings and results of this study indicate that the tradition of offering rugs to ambassadors and European courts on the one hand and the rugs export industry of this period have been the most important traditional factors in collecting valuable Iranian rugs by Europeans. Also, due to the cultural changes and modernization of the Qajar kings, especially Nasser al-Din Shah, and the welcome to participate in the famous international exhibitions of the nineteenth century is also one of the newest methods and facilities of European carpet collecting in this period.