Naqdeh Doozi is classified among the handicrafts and is a branch of traditional embroidery. Stay with Saed News to get acquainted with this beautiful art.
Naqdeh Doozi is the art of embroidery on fabric using threads made of gold, silver, or gilded metal, spun flat. The common motifs used in this art include wild flowerpots, cypress trees, tree designs, birds and flowers, boteh jegheh (paisley-like motifs), eslimi (arabesque), and five-, six-, eight-, and twelve-pointed stars. Currently, this art is somewhat prevalent in cities such as Isfahan, Yazd, Kashan, Kerman, Tehran, Qazvin, Bandar Abbas, Kurdistan, and Khuzestan.
One of the oldest forms of fabric decoration in Iran dates back to the Achaemenid period, which is Naqdeh Doozi. This stitching is done with golden, silver, gilded, or alloy threads spun flat. It was mostly used for decorating clothes, especially military and court garments, as well as curtains.
During the Parthian (Ashkanian) and Sassanian eras, this type of embroidery was widespread along with Golabatoon and Dehik embroidery. In the Islamic era, Iranian artists’ dedication to making curtains for the House of God (Kaaba) and covers for tombs increased the prominence of this stitch. Marco Polo’s writings reveal that Iranian women in the 13th century (7th century Hijri) produced Naqdeh Doozi, Golabatoon, and Dehik embroidery with gold or silver threads in interesting styles. Similarly, Chardin noted in his travelogue the full prevalence of these three arts during the Safavid period, with surviving examples in both domestic and international museums.
In this period, this art was mostly used to decorate women’s shalitas (a type of cloak), charghads (headscarves), waist veils, wedding tablecloths, and curtains. Yahya Zaka in his book on Iranian women's clothing refers to women’s lower garments (called tanban) before the Constitutional Revolution being decorated with Naqdeh Doozi, noting that these garments were usually made from zari, velvet, termeh, taffeta, or net with lining.
Examining older Naqdeh Doozi pieces in museums confirms the importance of this stitch during the Afsharid, Zand, and Qajar eras. In Isfahan’s Naqdeh Doozi, Naqdeh threads are sewn onto fabrics such as velvet, silk, taffeta, atlas, cotton, and net with motifs including boteh jegheh, birds and flowers, six-pointed stars, various wild flowerpots and blossoms, cypress and little cypress, tree designs, eslimi and Khatayi lines, border and zigzag flowers, and more. The main products include tablecloths, veils, scarves, curtains, bundles, cushions, and covers for various household items and clothing.
Naqdeh Doozi is done on woolen, velvet, broadcloth, silk, cotton, chelowar (a kind of cloth), atlas, taffeta, and net fabrics, and it takes various forms. For net-like fabrics, an overlapping stitch technique is used. Different cities name the embroidery style and pattern differently based on the stitching method and design used.
In Isfahan, it is popular on velvet, taffeta, atlas, and cotton fabrics. In southern cities of Iran, it is done on 4- and 6-hole net fabric, and if a star shape appears between the holes, two types of stitches are used called "Khos Doozi." The border pattern differs from the background pattern in this embroidery, known as "Shamsa Doozi." In one type of stitch usually accompanied by Golabatoon embroidery, unlike other stitches, no thread is used for stitching; instead, the Naqdeh ribbon itself is sewn onto the fabric.
Common motifs include:
Boteh Jegheh
Birds and flowers
Five-, six-, eight-, and twelve-pointed stars
Various wild flowerpots and blossoms
Cypress and little cypress
Trees
Eslimi and Khatayi lines
Border and zigzag flowers, and more.
After tracing the design on the base fabric, the fabric is placed in the workshop, and stitching is done using a needle whose thickness corresponds to the thickness of the Naqdeh thread used. The thread end is looped several times through the needle, then the thread is placed inside the loop, and carefully, so the thread does not twist or tangle, the needle is pushed through and pulled out of the fabric.
Another common method among artists is sewing the Naqdeh thread onto fabric using Golabatoon thread or a thread matching the color of the Naqdeh thread.
Stamping: Using molds or block-printing stamps from the art of Ghalamkar (textile printing).
Pouncing: Using a perforated paper and a bag filled with charcoal or dark powder for light fabrics and white chalk powder for dark fabrics.
Brush tracing: Placing the pattern paper beneath thin fabric or net and tracing with a brush.
Mental and abstract design: Executed during stitching by counting the holes in the net, such as in patterns like hel (an ancient motif), khash khash (poppy), rooster’s eye, and tegerak. A unique feature of this type of design is that the embroidery looks the same on both sides since the embroidered fabric effectively has no wrong side—the design is equally complete on both.
Gold: This precious metal has exceptional malleability with a melting point of 1065.5 °C. It can be shaped at temperatures below melting point into thin sheets used for architectural decoration, miniature painting, and Golabatoon making. Gold used must be pure with 24-carat fineness. (The best gold for Naqdeh thread is pure 24-carat gold.) Usually, to increase hardness, strength, and reduce cost, it is alloyed with silver.
Silver: The cheapest precious metal, widely used in art and industry due to its favorable properties. It has the highest electrical conductivity, is very soft and flexible, melting at 960 °C. Used in jewelry, decorative items, coins, and some metal plating. In Golabatoon making (and Naqdeh Doozi), silver with 100 fineness is used.
Silver Refining and Melting: 99.99% pure silver is melted between 700 and 960 °C in a crucible furnace, then 2.5 grams of pure copper is added per kilogram of silver to improve strength and ductility. The molten metal is poured into a mold called Rijeh to form an ingot. The ingot is hammered and heated to form a wire about 25 cm long and 2.5 cm thick, tapered at one end for gripping.
Gold Preparation: 24-carat gold ingots are hammered with a convex-faced hammer on an anvil into thin sheets about 0.06 mm thick (60 microns). Six layers are soaked in water to prevent sticking, stacked, hammered, separated, reheated, and this process repeated 6–7 times to reach 0.04 mm thickness (40 microns). Finally, the sheets are heated again to improve flexibility for wrapping and bonding onto silver.
Cleaning Silver Rods: Silver rods are filed to remove impurities like dust, sweat, and grease, and fine grooves made during filing help gold bond better.
Bonding Gold on Silver: Heated gold sheets (40 microns thick) are wrapped around silver rods, slightly longer than the rod circumference for overlap, wrapped with cotton thread for strength, pressed on glass to remove air, then heated to 400 °C in a charcoal brazier to burn off cotton and bond gold and silver.
Hammering: Gold-wrapped silver rods are hammered on an anvil to elongate and reduce diameter.
Drawing: The wire, now about 2 meters long and 1 cm thick, is drawn through progressively smaller steel dies while heated to about 300 °C and lubricated with natural fats to reach about 1 mm diameter.
Final thinning: Using a copper ring (toqak), the wire is heated indirectly and drawn down to 0.08 mm diameter. From here, the processes of making Golabatoon and Naqdeh threads diverge. If the wire is spun onto natural silk, it becomes Golabatoon thread; if hammered flat, it becomes Naqdeh thread.
Flattening into ribbons: The 0.08 mm wire is softened with indirect heat and rolled into a flat ribbon about 0.015 mm thick (15 microns), the final Naqdeh thread, wound into skeins for embroiderers.
Naqdeh thread is sold in skeins of 10 or 5 mesghal (traditional weight units), but the master cutter cuts both ends into two categories of 30 to 35 cm length threads. The gold content in Naqdeh thread (silver wire coated or gilded with gold) varies by artist order, usually 1–4% gold.
This thread, made of strong sewing thread or cotton, connects the Naqdeh thread to the embroidery needle indirectly. It ensures maximum use of expensive Naqdeh thread with minimal waste and allows the artist to untwist knots or coils easily during stitching by rolling the needle between fingers, ensuring the flat ribbon shape of the thread stays intact without twisting. The interface thread is about 10 cm long and is attached to 30–35 cm Naqdeh thread pieces.
Naqdeh Doozi is executed according to abstract mental designs or transferred patterns on fabric or net. The net used must have hexagonal holes. During stitching, light finger pressure holds the Naqdeh thread firmly on the surface. At the end, the thread is secured with a "kour" stitch to prevent unraveling.
To better preserve embroidered fabric and raw Naqdeh thread, keep them away from moisture.
Some embroidery damage results from the use of fake threads instead of genuine silver-gilded Naqdeh thread by some embroiderers.
Naqdeh Doozi is used for decorating tablecloths, veils, shalitas, charghads, and similar items. The thread in Naqdeh Doozi is gilded or silver and flat (not spun).
