About Ghalamkari

Ghalamkari is one of Persian handicrafts (Iranian handicrafts). Ghalamkari is the art of creating patterns or designs on cotton cloth including canvas. In this kind of art, wood hand-stamps are used to manually print patterns on fabrics. Ghalamkari flourished in the Safavid period. In that period, the growing demand for the patterned fabrics made craftsmen find solutions to supply more of these types of fabrics. In this regard, the only way was to cut designs on the wood hand-stamps and applying colors to fabric in those designs. At the beginning, the artists used to print only some patterns with incised wooden blocks, drawing the rest of patterns by hand; however, later, masters could develop products just with hand block printing. At first, patterns used in the art of Ghalamkari include floral and arabesque designs. But later, during the Qajar period, heroic and religious designs were used in Ghalamkari in addition to the traditional ones. Famous paisley patterns, also known as boteh Shah Abbas, are seen in the margin or body of most of these fabrics. Some of the products that are produced from Ghalamkar fabrics include clothes, prayer rugs, tablecloth, curtains, boghches , women's shoes, bed linens, handkerchiefs and bags.