Oriental carpets, Persian ones in particular, were not thoroughly known until the early 20th century. These carpets were generally collected by collectors for their mere beauty or material value rather than for their historical or cultural aspects. At the end of the 19th century, some researchers tried to acquire more knowledge about Oriental carpets. Lessing, Bode, Riegel, Martin, and Sarre were among the leading characters. The scientific analysis of carpets in the Western academies began with the two schools of Berlin and Vienna. One of the concerns of these researchers in this period was the explanation of technical and aesthetic models of identification for categorizing and assigning Persian carpets to specific weaving geographies. Since the data in this period were generally obtained by relying on museum carpets and the library method--rather than by survey, there was no accurate knowledge about the variety of the designs, patterns, and methods of weaving and production of Persian carpets. Thus, the classification, dating, and assigning of carpets to a carpet-weaving area was done every now and then with incorrect criteria. Kashan was one of the areas of carpet weaving that were neglected in Western studies in the years between 1901 and 1926 due to the lack of information or incorrect assignments.

The goal of this research is to identify and analyze the method of categorizing and assigning carpets to the weaving geography of Kashan from 1901 to 1926 in Western studies. The authors have tried to answer this question: what methods have Western researchers used in this era to classify and assign carpets to Kashan? The research was carried out adopting a historical approach and a qualitative analysis, based on library data and first-hand documents, by the means of note-taking. Almost all available samples in the time span from 1901 to 1926 were referred to.

According to the findings of the research, from 1901 to 1910, the knowledge about the weaving geography of Kashan was very limited, and carpets weaved both in the Safavid and Qajar eras, including the Kashan silk group, Salting, or Polonaise, were all assigned to other regions. Even in the categories provided by early researchers of the Iranian carpet weaving geography, the name of Kashan, as a carpet weaving region was generally absent. For the first time, Ripley (1904) mentioned Kashan as one of the subsidiary carpet weaving areas in Iran. Also, in this decade, researchers never mentioned the geography of Kashan carpets in the assignment of the Safavid carpets in the European collections except for the Ardabil (Sheikh Safi) carpet, which was attributed to Kashan because of its inscription. Although Lewis (1911) has classified Kashan as one of the subcategories of Azerbaijan textile geography, but between 1910 and 1920 the knowledge and, consequently, the studies about Kashan carpet weaving expanded. Hawley (1913) described Kashan as an important area in the field of carpet weaving in Iran. He carefully investigated the technical and aesthetic characteristics of Kashan’s carpets in the Qajar era. Moreover, Pünter (1917) for the first time introduces the group of Kashan pictorial carpets to the western scientific community. The years between 1920 and 1926 can be considered an important period in the recognition of Kashan’s new woven (Qajar and Pahlavi) and antique (Safavi) carpets. The key figure of this period who played a prominent role in this identification was Pope. By holding the Chicago Exhibition in 1926, he established the name of Kashan as a prominent city in the geography of Iranian carpet weaving, where probably some of the most prominent Safavid carpets were woven. It should be mentioned that in the same period, Kendrick in 1922, for the first time, challenged the hypothesis that Ardabil carpet was woven in Kashan and argued against it. Later, Pope rejected the hypothesis in his "A Survey of Persian Art from Prehistoric Times to the Present," although, in the catalog of the 1926 Chicago exhibition, he clearly considered the carpet to be woven in Kashan.

The results showed that the lack of identifying models for the extensive geography of Persian carpets caused the carpet experts not to have a detailed knowledge about the weaving geography of Kashan in the initial studies and, thus, they assigned some new (Qajar and Pahlavi) and antique (Safavi) carpets, which today with no doubt are assigned to Kashan to other areas. Even in the categories presented by the first carpet researchers of the geography of Iranian carpet weaving, the name of Kashan, as a carpet weaving region, was absent; however, between 1910 and 1920, studies and consequently the knowledge about Kashan carpet expanded, and with the Chicago exhibition in 1926, the name of Kashan was established as a prominent city in the geography of Iranian carpets, where some of the most prominent Safavid carpets were woven. This path has gradually added up to the knowledge about the carpet weaving geography of Kashan, and it did not happen overnight.