Signed Qom (Ghom) carpets: reading the signature cartouche

Where the signature of a Qom carpet sits, what it names and what it does not: examples from the Dorotheum, Chiswick, Nagel and the V&A, soberly assessed.

Carpet (silk, dated)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 57.5 · CC0

By Last reviewed:

Updated November 2026 · sources linked

At a glance

  • Modern Qom (Ghom) silk carpets often bear a knotted-in signature, usually in a small cartouche at one end or in the border.
  • The typical form combines the place name with a workshop or family name, such as “Ghom Iran Amiri” (Dorotheum 2016) or “ایران قم ارمی” (Iran, Qom, Erami).
  • As a rule the signature names a workshop, not the weaver. It does not reveal who actually did the knotting.
  • Signatures in carpets are old: according to the V&A, a tomb carpet from Qom bears the inscription of the master Nimatullah Jawshaqani, dated 1082 AH (1671/72).
  • No source examined puts a figure on how much a signature raises the value of a Qom carpet.

Anyone who turns over a Qom silk carpet (Ghom, Qum, Kum; Persian قم) or looks along its ends will often find a small knotted-in inscription. It is the first thing dealers and auction houses describe. But what exactly does it say, and what follows from it? This article shows where the signature is placed, how it is composed and what questions it leaves open. It is based on auction catalogues, a museum record and clearly marked trade claims.

An old practice

Names in carpets are not a modern invention. The inscription of the Ardabil carpet names a “Maqsud of Kashan” and the year 946 of the Hijra (Wikipedia: Persian carpet). For Qom there is an early piece of evidence of its own. The Victoria and Albert Museum holds one of twelve silk carpets from the mausoleum of Shah Abbas II in Qom. According to the museum, one of these twelve bears the inscription: work of the master Nimatullah Jawshaqani in the year 1082 AH (V&A, T.438-1976). The record does not say whether the London piece itself bears this inscription.

Britannica describes the same group as dated and signed by a master (Britannica: Rug and carpet – Persia). In the Iranica, Annette Ittig points to a second trail. Carpet designs come from specialised draughtsmen (naqqash), whose names occasionally appear in commissioned carpets (Iranica, Carpets iv). A signature may therefore refer to the designer, the head of the workshop or the commission.

No specialist source on signature practice in modern Qom was found. What follows is based on catalogue descriptions and trade claims.

Examples in the trade: Qom silk rugs at BazarPort (our own shop)

Video from Hassan Farahani’s YouTube channel (Teppichbazar) Playing loads the video from YouTube (Google), which transfers data to Google.

Where the signature is placed

The information from catalogues and the trade shows two preferred places: one end of the carpet and the border.

SourcePosition as describedWording
Dorotheum, 23.03.2016centre of the lower outer border“Ghom Iran Amiri”
Dorotheum, 2025signed on two sides“Ghom Sadegh Zadeh”
Dorotheum, 21.10.2020not stated“Ghom Daneshpoue”
Dorotheum, 11.10.2022not stated“Abol Fashli”
Chiswick, 24.03.2026cartouche at one end“Jamshidi”
Chiswick, 27.01.2026cartouche at one endnot reproduced
carpetour.net, Erami company portrait (illustrations)cartouches near the end“ایران قم ارمی” and “قم – ارمی”
rugs.net (trade claim)cartouche in the end panel, in Persian and Latin script“Master Hossein Kashizadeh”
rugs.net (trade claim)lower cartouche, flanked by small camel and elephant figuresworkshop name “Gholbafan”
rugs.net (trade claim)in the border“Darakhshan”

Sources: Dorotheum 2016; Dorotheum 2025; Dorotheum 2020; Dorotheum 2022; Chiswick Lot 84; Chiswick Lot 76; carpetour.net; rugs.net Kashizadeh; rugs.net Gholbafan; rugs.net Darakhshan.

The sources disagree

Dealers give differing accounts of the usual position of the signature. Bizsan mostly names the upper border (bizsan.hu). Rugs.net and Rugman speak generally of the border or of a small part of the border (rugs.net; rugman.com). The auction catalogues show a signature in the centre of the lower border, cartouches at one end and a double signature on two sides. “Upper” and “lower”, moreover, depend on the side from which one views the carpet. No fixed rule can be derived from the sources.

How a signature is composed

Place name and workshop

Bizsan describes the usual scheme: first the city name “Ghom”, then the family or workshop name (bizsan.hu, trade claim). The Dorotheum lots confirm the pattern with “Ghom Daneshpoue”, “Ghom Sadegh Zadeh” and “Ghom Iran Amiri”. In the last case the name of the country is added. Other signatures give only a name, such as “Jamshidi” or “Abol Fashli”.

Written in Persian, the city name is قم, pronounced Qom (Wikipedia: Qom). If you do not read Persian script, you can look for this short word as a point of reference. It consists of only two letters. The rest of the cartouche is then usually the name.

Persian and Latin script

According to rugs.net, the signature is mostly knotted in Persian script (rugs.net, trade claim). A listing by the same dealer describes a cartouche in Persian and Latin script. Bilingual signatures are probably aimed at the export market. This is an interpretation, not a statement of the source.

Different transliterations

The same name can look very different in Latin transliteration. Even the place name appears as Qom, Qum, Ghom or Ghum (Wikipedia: Qom rug). The same holds for workshop names:

PersianLatin forms
جمشیدیJamshidi, Djamshidi
میرمهدیMirmehdi, Mir Mehdi

The example of Erami shows how scattered the information on a single name can be. Beytoote names a Haj Mahmoud Erami from Kashan (beytoote.com). Wikipedia names the Hossein Erami workshop as the maker of the 2019 state gift (Wikipedia: Qom rug). One dealer lists a master “Erami” (little-persia.com, trade claim). A company portrait on the carpet portal Carpetour establishes the connection: Hossein is a son of Haj Mahmoud, and the brand is called “Hossein Erami” (carpetour.net, the firm’s own statement). In the cartouche the name appears in Persian: ارمی. For every signature, check the Persian spelling in the cartouche, not just the transliteration in the catalogue.

What a signature tells you

A signature is first of all an indication of the workshop of origin. It says who commissioned the carpet or was responsible for it. It does not say who knotted it. For the Qom region in the 1960s, Floor describes a production carried predominantly by women and girls and supplied by the municipal administration with materials and designs (Iranica, Carpets xii). In this organisation the name of the weaver does not appear.

Rugman also points out that signatures occur on very fine carpets from other cities as well (rugman.com, trade claim). A name alone therefore does not prove an origin in Qom. Only in combination with the place name does it give an indication, and even that is only as reliable as the workshop that knots it in.

A signature can, moreover, be imitated. In July 2024 the firm of Hossein Erami publicly warned against carpets that other producers mark with its name (carpetour.net, company notice). It advises asking the seller for the firm’s certificate of origin (shenasnameh) and checking its authenticity with the firm.

A signature need not consist of writing. In an oral-history session in 2022, the daughter of the master Mohammad Jamshidi spoke of a conviction of her father’s: a hand-knotted carpet should have a deliberate error somewhere in the design, as a kind of style and signature (Hawzah News, oral history). The source does not say whether, or where, this error can be found on Jamshidi carpets.

Nor does a signature say anything about age. None of the Qom signatures examined contains a year. The dates in the catalogues read simply “modern” or “contemporary production” (Dorotheum 2022).

Signature and value

The catalogues show that the signature is part of the standard information. The Dorotheum names it alongside size, material, knot density and condition (Dorotheum 2016). Chiswick lists it after foundation, selvedges and fringes (Chiswick Lot 84).

A workshop name can shape a catalogue text. In 2019 Nagel presented a silk Qom from the “Meistermanufaktur Jamshidi” (Jamshidi master workshop) and described the workshop as probably the best of this provenance (Nagel via veryimportantlot). The description does not say whether this carpet bore a signature.

No source gave a quantifiable premium for the signature. Results differ above all by size. A signed “Jamshidi” carpet of approx. 147 × 98 cm fetched 882 pounds including buyer’s premium at Chiswick in March 2026 (Chiswick Lot 84). The “Ghom Iran Amiri” of approx. 400 × 297 cm fetched 17,401 euros including buyer’s premium and tax at the Dorotheum in 2016 (Dorotheum 2016). Without comparable unsigned pieces, no signature premium can be derived from this.

Checking a signature: what to look for

  • Look for the place name. Does قم appear in the cartouche? Without a place name, the attribution to Qom is a dealer’s attribution.
  • Examine position and integration. A signature is knotted in, and thus part of the pile. On the back it must appear as part of the knot pattern.
  • Note the Persian spelling. Only this permits comparison with other pieces; Latin transliterations vary.
  • Watch for two signatures. Some carpets are signed in two places, like the Dorotheum lot of 2025.
  • Ask for a certificate of origin. Where a workshop itself issues certificates, as the Erami firm does, this is an additional point to check.
  • Do not overrate the name. Biographies of Qom workshops are documented almost nowhere. The register of Qom workshops shows what could be verified about the individual names.

How to recognise imitations and copies, which may also reproduce signatures, is discussed in the article Recognising fake Qom silk.

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