A LOUIS XIII STYLE EUROPEAN CARPET
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A LOUIS XIII STYLE EUROPEAN CARPET

SECOND QUARTER 20TH CENTURY

Details
A LOUIS XIII STYLE EUROPEAN CARPET
SECOND QUARTER 20TH CENTURY
The midnight-blue field with a central floral garland with floral bouquets above and below, the field framed with simulated gold fringing, within a broad midnight-blue border with ornate flower-filled cartouches alternating with flowering baskets and abundant cornucopiae to each corner within narrow leafy minor stripes, full pile, a couple of reweaves
15ft. 2in. X 9ft.7in. (460cm. x 290cm.)
Special notice
These lots have been imported from outside the EU for sale using a Temporary Import regime. Import VAT is payable (at 5%) on the Hammer price. VAT is also payable (at 20%) on the buyer’s Premium on a VAT inclusive basis. When a buyer of such a lot has registered an EU address but wishes to export the lot or complete the import into another EU country, he must advise Christie's immediately after the auction.

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Carlijn Dammers
Carlijn Dammers

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Lot Essay

The design of the present lot derives from an early group of French Savonnerie carpets frequently referred to as Louis XIII carpets. It is widely believed however that the group were rather woven after the reign of Louis XIII, between his death in 1643 and the succession of Louis XIV to the throne in 1661. On January 4, 1608, Henri IV encouraged French carpet production by granting workshop space in the basement of the Louvre below the Grande Galerie to Pierre Dupont tapissier ordinaire en tapis de Turquie at façons de Levant, (see Pierre Verlet, The James Rothschild Collection at Waddersdon Manor, The Savonnerie, The National Trust, London, 1982, p. 28). One of Dupont's apprentices, Simon Lourdet, quickly became so proficient in the trade that he ingratiated himself to the Queen, Marie de Medici, who allowed him to install another workshop in the former soap factory, or savonnerie at Chaillot.

Carpets from that period shared many common features, foremost the black or dark blue and sometimes brown ground colour that is strewn with colourful, naturalistic and identifiable single flowers or sprays. A wide and defined border surrounds the field containing similar flowers and floral arrangements creating a millefleurs effect. Often the flower arrangements in the border are sitting in blue and white Chinese porcelain bowls, silver basins, cartouches, or low open-work straw baskets. The minor borders separating the border from the field and outlining the border are typically drawn from elements of the antique or from borders used in tapestries from the same period such as a small-scale scrolled leaf and leaf tip ornament as used in the inner border of our example with a similar variation in the outer border. It is not known who designed or provided the models for these carpets but the overall concept is based on Oriental (Persian, Indian and Turkish) carpets combined with the European taste for flowers.




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