Keshan (or Kashan) is a city on the borderline of the desert. It is surrounded by arid landscapes. As early as the 16th and 17th centuries, it acquired a respected reputation as a weaving centre on the same level as Ispahan. Both cities hosted imperial workshops of the Safavid rulers. For the scholars of the 19th century, it became even hard to distinguish them from each other.
Under Shah Abbas (1587-1629) the production reached the highest standards, but the Afghan invasion of 1722 destroyed most of the important workshops, including Keshan and Isfahan which only started reopening either under the Qadjar dynasty at the very end of the 19th century/ beginning 20th. Cecil Edward who published “The Persian Carpet” in 1953 after having travelled all over Persia claimed that he didn’t remember seeing Keshan carpets dating from the 18th or 19th in any museum or private collection.