A BAKHTIARI CARPET, the ivory field with an overall design with palmettes and floral tendrils, the spandrels with cusped concentric floral medallions linking a serrated frame, in a broad tomato-red border of turretted salor guls divided by paired part juval guls, an inscription at one end dated 1315/10?H (1892/3AD) between indigo floral and minor stripes, as short kilim strip at each end (areas of very slight wear, negligible stains, replaced selvedge and minute repairs)

Details

A BAKHTIARI CARPET, the ivory field with an overall design with palmettes and floral tendrils, the spandrels with cusped concentric floral medallions linking a serrated frame, in a broad tomato-red border of turretted salor guls divided by paired part juval guls, an inscription at one end dated 1315/10?H (1892/3AD) between indigo floral and minor stripes, as short kilim strip at each end (areas of very slight wear, negligible stains, replaced selvedge and minute repairs)
18ft.10in. x 11ft.10in. (573cm. x 360cm.)

Literature

HALI vol.43, p.51, pl.21 (detail)

Lot Essay

'Ali Quli Khan, better known by his official title of Sardar As'ad II was one of the most powerful of the Bakhtiari Khans around the turn of the century. He was the fourth son of Husayn Quli Khan Ilkhan, 'the most brilliant of all Iranian tribal leaders in the recent past'. Politically he had stronger nationalistic tendencies than many of his contemporary khans, fully appreciating the importance of oil to the Bakhtiari. Having been one of the two signatories to the agreement with the British for oil in 1905, he became a government minister serving between 1909 and 1911 as Minister of the Interior and then minister of War. He died in 1917.

Bennett,I.: 'Carpets of the Khans', part 1 HALI 43, pp.40-51 and part 2 HALI 44, pp.18-29

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