PROBABLY RABAT, LATE 19TH CENTURY

Details

A MOROCCAN CARPET
Probably Rabat, late 19th century
The rust-red field with small scattered motifs around a pale apricot stellar medallion containing similar motifs and panels, the linked charcoal-grey spandrels with radiating leaf-motifs, a skirt of arcading issuing stylised tulips above and below, in a broad brick-red border of polychrome hooked hexagons between apricot similar lozenge, charcoal-grey flowerhead and serrated leaf, minor floral meander and s-motif stripes, corroded black, central medallion rewoven, other scattered areas of repair, generally good pile
14 ft. 1 in. x 10 ft. 2 in. (430 cm. x 310 cm.)

Special notice

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Lot Essay

In contrast to most Moroccan carpets this example is unusually finely woven with an extensive range of good colours. The closest similarities seem to be found in the weavings of Rabat, where original Ottoman Turkish designs were, as here, often adapted into local variants (P. L. Fiske, W. R. Pickering and R. S. Yohe: From the Far West: Carpets and Textiles of Morocco, Washington D.C., 1980, pls.1-3 for example). This remarkable carpet however is very different in character from most woven there, prizing the qualities that normally characterize urban weavings far more than is normally encountered in Morocco.

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