Financial Tribune - The Wagner Garden Carpet - a late 17th-century Persian carpet never before seen in the US - is on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in a special exhibition titled �Eternal Springtime: A Persian Garden Carpet from the Burrell Collection�.

It is on loan from the Burrell Collection Museum in Glasgow, Scotland. The unprecedented loan of the rare textile was possible because renovation work is underway at the Burrell Collection building.

Called the �Wagner Garden Carpet� after a former owner and woven during the Safavid dynasty in Kerman, it is the third-oldest-known Persian garden carpet from the seventeenth century.

The Wagner Garden Carpet is presented at the Metropolitan along with eight other historical carpets from the museum�s collection all made in Iran.

Exquisite carpets are on display at the Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Gallery (Gallery 462), which features masterpieces created during the Safavid dynasty in the 16th and 17th centuries, the museum�s website, Metmuseum.org wrote.

Through their prodigious designs, garden carpets evoke images of the ancient Iranian Chahar Bagh � the four-quartered garden with water channels that divide the walled garden and meet at a central pool.

In the Wagner carpet, the garden - which depicts springtime - also teems with life. The trees, bushes and shrubs are abloom; animals (both predators and prey), birds of all types, multicolored butterflies and moths inhabit the landscape. Fishes and ducks populate the water. The shimmering water is cunningly illustrated by a lattice pattern drawn with varied thicknesses of line and color.

Wagner carpet measures 531cm by 432cm and is woven with cotton warps; wool, cotton, and silk wefts; and wool pile. Kerman was a famous hand-made carpet center during the Safavid period and is still a major city where quality carpets and rugs are made.

The carpets are set to remain on show through October 7 at the Metropolitan Museum.