This beautiful city, right in the heart of the country, made a worthy capital when Shah Abbas the Great moved here in 1590. There is ample documentary evidence that he established a large court manufactory here, and it is on this evidence that many sixteenth- and seventeenth-century carpets are credited with having been made here. Certainly there are to this day many antique carpets referred to as Isfahan, but whether they all came from the looms set up by Shah Abbas or not is debatable. Shah Abbas died in 1629 and from then on until the Afghan invasion in 1722 a decline set in, so it can be assumed that the period of greatness only lasted about forty or fifty years.
Revival of the craft did not begin in Isfahan until after the First World War, and today Isfahan rugs and carpets are purely commercial and not very attractive 3 there is something about the finish which belies their beautiful designs. Their colours, too, appear to lack the blend of shades which the designs deserve.