Originally posted by: lashy
The Mughal jail carpets
The world renowned Mughal jail carpets, possibly the most expensive carpets in world at present, originated from the Mughal empire under the patronage of one of the greatest mughal emperors, Akbar.
Emperor Akbar, who was illiterate himself was a great propagator of the arts and culture. It was when it was brought to the notice of the emperor that the prisoners used to create a lot of ruckus in the jails that he decided to
reform them. Between 1520-30's he brought some of the finest weavers of carpets from the most well known carpet workshops of Persia to teach the jail birds, the art of weaving carpets.
These jail birds took a lot of pride in their work and they eventually outshone their masters. These carpets were made for the palaces in India and some were also sent abroad in the form of gifts. Since there was no shortage of money, labour or a time constraint, it could take a few hundred
weavers up to 15 years to make a single carpet.
They used the finest wools, velvets, silks and sometimes even Pashmina' (Cashmere) which is considered to be one of the most exotic fibres for weaving shawls for making these carpet. The dyes were all natural dyes/vegetable dyes extracted out of plants, rocks, minerals, insects etc.
These designs were rare and quite different from the traditional Persian , Turkish and Central Asian carpets and a lot of these designs were original Indian patterns prior to the Mughal influence. The most famous jails for carpets were Agra Jail, Lahore Jail, Amritsar Jail, Jaipur jail, Gwalior jail and Bikaner jail.