SOUTH EAST CAUCASUS, EARLY 19TH CENTURY

The design of bold, horned, medallions that alternate with the dynamic diagonals that radiate from rectangular cartouches, ultimately derives from the 'Dragon' pile carpets and the silk embroideries that were woven in the Caucasus from the late 16th to the 18th century. The present lot displays the wonderfully archaic forms of the design and belongs to a group of early Lenkoran rugs from the Talish region in the southern Caucasus, dated to the late 18th or early 19th century. Other related three-medallion examples are illustrated in Eberhart Herrmann, Seltene Orientteppiche X, Munich 1988, pp.74-75; Ulrich Schürmann, Caucasian Rugs, Cologne 1964, pl.57, pp.174-75 and James D. Burns, The Caucasus, Traditions in Weaving, Seattle 1987, p.13. They are all woven with the same wonderfully soft and lustrous wool as our rug, with very similar colouring, field designs and bold red and white reciprocal trefoil borders. There are a relatively small number of examples within the group which bear just two medallions, see Martin Volkmann, Alte Orientteppiche, Munich 1985, pl.68, pp.168-169, and Christie's London, 21 April 2015, lot 32.