NORTH WEST PERSIA, CIRCA 1920

The PETAG workshop (Persische Teppiche A.G.), was a German initiative which produced high quality carpets in order to combat the decline in quality encountered as a result of the mass production of the late 19th century. The carpets are identified by their distinctive 'signature' formed of three çintamani roundels generally located in the far corner of the field or border pattern. The workshop frequently used 16th century classical carpet designs as a source of inspiration, which were available to them in printed books such as F.R. Martin's, A History of Oriental Carpets before 1800, Stockholm, 1908. The present carpet draws its inspiration from an 'in and out' palmette design taken from a 16th/17th century Safavid Persian carpet fragment published first in Friedrich Sarre, Orientalische Teppiche, Vienna, 1892, pl.XXXIII, no.43 and later in F. Sarre and Herrman Trenkwald, Alt-Orientalische Teppiche, Vienna, 1926, Vol 1, pl.13, p.41. One can form a good impression of the original scale and drawing of such carpets in a small Safavid Isfahan fragment offered in the present sale, lot 205. A Petag carpet of the exact same design as the present lot, but of slightly different field and border ground colour, sold in these Rooms, 14 October 2004, lot 47.