Christopher Knight reports on the "breathtaking Ardabil Carpet, an incomparable 16th-century masterpiece… one of the two greatest Persian rugs ever woven."  The rug was created "While Titian was busy painting the voluptuous 'Venus of Urbino' in Italy," and, Knight continues, is "A Persian version of a Latin 'hortus conclusus' — literally, an enclosed garden — the design's bilateral symmetry is organic rather than rigid."  The Ardabil Carpet is on view as part of the exhibition Gifts of the Sultan: The Arts of Giving at the Islamic Courts at LACMA through September 5, 2011.