Lot Essay
The carpet offered here is part of a group of carpets woven in and around the town of Arraiolos in south central Portugal in the 17th and 18th centuries. This carpet proves that the Arraiolos weavers were synthesizing Turkish and Persian (Ottoman and Safavid) elements into their works combining them with their own folk motifs creating a whimsical but well designed work of art. For example, the animals in combat, like the rampant lion, surrounding the medallion are an inspiration from 16th century Northwest Persian carpets. And the basic medallion layout is derived from Persian prototypes. However, a vase with five carnations, as seen in the main border in our example, is an indigenious motif of the Portuguese, as is the mermaid-like figure flanking the medallion (see de Oliveira, F. Baptista, Historia e Tecnica dos Tapetes de Arraiolos, Lisbon, 1991, p.22 and p.297). Two very similar examples are in public museums. One, with comparable complexity, is in the Braganca House Museum (see de Oliveira, p.297) and the other, also with figures on horseback, is in the collection at Hearst Monument in San Simeon, California (see Sherrill, Sarah, Carpets and Rugs of Europe and America, New York, 1996, p. 57).