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Lot Essay
The knot count is 8V x 7V per cm. sq.
The only silk Mamluk carpet known to have survived to the present day is that in the collection of the Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Vienna, Inv.no. T 8332 1922 KB (Angela Völker, Die orientalischen Knüpfteppiche im MAK, Vienna, 2001, pl.2, pp.42-45). The design of the present silk carpet closely follows another 16th-century Mamluk carpet in the Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Vienna, a wool pile and structure fragment. That fragment was published by Friedrich Sarre and Hermann Trenkwald, Altorientalische Teppiche, Österreichisches Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna/Leipzig, 1926/28, vol.1, pl.50 and it seems plausible that this unusual silk carpet was woven as a special commission for the Maharaja of Mysore's new palace. From 1897, the old Mysore fort underwent a vast project of beautification and the services of British architect Henry Irwin were enlisted to build a magnificent Indo-Saracenic palace, which was completed in 1912. The present lot would have been an ideal carpet for the extravagant and eclectic interiors of the new palace, and the dating of the carpet to the late 19th century from dye analysis fits neatly with the reputed provenance that it was formerly in the Mysore royal collection.
The only silk Mamluk carpet known to have survived to the present day is that in the collection of the Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Vienna, Inv.no. T 8332 1922 KB (Angela Völker, Die orientalischen Knüpfteppiche im MAK, Vienna, 2001, pl.2, pp.42-45). The design of the present silk carpet closely follows another 16th-century Mamluk carpet in the Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Vienna, a wool pile and structure fragment. That fragment was published by Friedrich Sarre and Hermann Trenkwald, Altorientalische Teppiche, Österreichisches Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna/Leipzig, 1926/28, vol.1, pl.50 and it seems plausible that this unusual silk carpet was woven as a special commission for the Maharaja of Mysore's new palace. From 1897, the old Mysore fort underwent a vast project of beautification and the services of British architect Henry Irwin were enlisted to build a magnificent Indo-Saracenic palace, which was completed in 1912. The present lot would have been an ideal carpet for the extravagant and eclectic interiors of the new palace, and the dating of the carpet to the late 19th century from dye analysis fits neatly with the reputed provenance that it was formerly in the Mysore royal collection.