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Lot Essay
If any further proof were needed that the sixteenth and seventeenth century Isfahan 'in and out palmette' carpet design, as seen in lots 91 and 183, travelled to Mughal India, here it is! The drawing of this large fragment is classical; only the enlargement of some of the palmettes presages the Agra carpets which are to come. Yet the border is quintissentially Mughal, both in colouring and design, and can be compared with many Mughal carpet borders.
There is a larger version of this carpet in a European Collection which demonstrates the unfortunate nature of the repiling on this example. That one has, as here, a bitonal field, but there it is green. A careful study of this one shows it to have been the same; it is the changing of colour of the repiling which gives it its present purple hue. The European Collection example also demonstrates clearly the massive scale on which this was once woven, being around 7m. long.
There is a larger version of this carpet in a European Collection which demonstrates the unfortunate nature of the repiling on this example. That one has, as here, a bitonal field, but there it is green. A careful study of this one shows it to have been the same; it is the changing of colour of the repiling which gives it its present purple hue. The European Collection example also demonstrates clearly the massive scale on which this was once woven, being around 7m. long.