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Lot Essay
The Alpujarra weavings take their name from the mountainous area on the southern slopes of the Sierra Nevada, in Spain’s Grenada province. Derived from the Moorish word for ‘the grass lands’, Las Alpujarras boast some of the region’s most fertile and beautiful landscapes (Cornelia Bateman Faraday, European and American Carpets and Rugs, Michigan, 1929, p.57). It was against this backdrop that the Moors, who settled in Grenada following their defeat at the hands of Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492, first produced what was to become a stalwart of European peasant weaving. Although the earliest firm dating of an Alpujarra rug is 1740, many agree that their manufacture dates back to at least the late fifteenth century (Roderick R. Taylor, 'Spanish Rugs at Vizcaya', Hali, Issue 52, August 1990, pp.100-107). When the Moors were finally expelled from Spain in 1609, their influence over the region’s weaving remained pronounced.
Originally designed as bedspreads, they were commonly composed of two or three strips woven together on account of the narrow looms on which they were produced. They are not strictly knotted carpets, but part of the ‘U-loop technique’, which endows them with a somewhat provincial quality (Kurt Erdmann, Seven Hundred Years of Oriental Carpets, London, 1970, p.215). This is further enhanced by their bold and simple designs and colour palette. The emphasis on the use of green, often combined with red and yellow, harks back to their Moorish heritage and is clearly illustrated in the following two lots of the present sale, (Bateman Faraday, op.cit, p.59).
The lemon-yellow field and bold geometric lattice design of the present lot is particularly striking and more unusual than most. As well as including motifs of flora and fauna typical of the region, the weavers often incorporated the name of the person for whom it was commissioned along with the date of production, as seen on an example offered in these Rooms, 16 October 2003, lot 2. Like the two subsequent lots in the present sale, that example was woven with the more common lozenge lattice design.
Originally designed as bedspreads, they were commonly composed of two or three strips woven together on account of the narrow looms on which they were produced. They are not strictly knotted carpets, but part of the ‘U-loop technique’, which endows them with a somewhat provincial quality (Kurt Erdmann, Seven Hundred Years of Oriental Carpets, London, 1970, p.215). This is further enhanced by their bold and simple designs and colour palette. The emphasis on the use of green, often combined with red and yellow, harks back to their Moorish heritage and is clearly illustrated in the following two lots of the present sale, (Bateman Faraday, op.cit, p.59).
The lemon-yellow field and bold geometric lattice design of the present lot is particularly striking and more unusual than most. As well as including motifs of flora and fauna typical of the region, the weavers often incorporated the name of the person for whom it was commissioned along with the date of production, as seen on an example offered in these Rooms, 16 October 2003, lot 2. Like the two subsequent lots in the present sale, that example was woven with the more common lozenge lattice design.