PROBABLY BERGAMA, LATE 18TH CENTURY/EARLY 19TH CENTURY

This fragment comes from what must have been a very powerful rug. The boldness of the blocks of colour and the strength of design give it an archaic feel. The motifs inside each panel have the same elements as the motifs inside each octagon on a late version of a Small Pattern Holbein rug (W. Brüggemann and H. Böhmer, Teppiche der Bauern und Nomaden in Anatolien, Hanover, 1980, pl.58, pp.226-7). Both rugs share the same minor stripe. In the present rug it is as if each original octagonal panel has been expanded to fill a rectangle. Another West Anatolian rug with which the present example shares a number of features is in a Massachusetts Collection (Dennis R. Dodds and Murray L. Eiland (eds.), Oriental Rugs from Atlantic Collections, exhibition catalogue, Philadelphia, 1996, no.60, p.60).