NORTHERN INDIA, FIRST HALF 17TH CENTURY

The elegant drawing of this rug shows a careful consideration for each individual leaf, palmette and blossom, which are enhanced by the use of outlining and decorating using ton-sur-ton colour combinations. The border configuration and field design of the present rug relates closely to a number of large format carpets including the famous Girdlers carpet commissioned by Robert Bell in the 1630s for the Girdlers Company, a livery company in the City of London (J. Irwin, The Girdlers Carpet, London, 1962, p.1). The surviving East India Company records from 1630 and 1634 provide us with an exact location and date for the commissioning and weaving of the carpet, which help to give a precise date and weaving origin for this carpet. Two related early seventeenth-century examples are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Dimand and Mailey Oriental Rugs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1973, fig.129, cat.55 and fig.130, cat.56). The first (cat.55), previously in the collection of Lady Sackville and gifted by J.Pierpont Morgan, has the same floral motifs in the overall field design but are arranged in a different manner to create an alternative rhythm. The border on that carpet is very different to this leaf and palmette border in that it comprises a series of linked cartouche panels interspersed with small decorative cloudbands and was inspired by classic late sixteenth-century Persian carpet design. The second, much closer comparable to the present rug (cat.56), formerly in the collection of George Blumenthal, is of a similar size to the present rug and has the same field design of stems balanced on either side forming lozenges along the long axis. Whilst that border is one of the closest to the present lot, the leaves that flank each alternate palmette are smaller serrated saz leaves rather than the curvaceous bunches of wisteria.

The popularity of this beautiful design is attested by the number of known variants that remain in important collections today, including one in the Glasgow Museums and Art Galleries, Burrell Collection (S.B. Sherrill, Carpets and Rugs of Europe and America, New York, 1996, pl.161, p.148), another in the Mosteiro de Santa Maria, Lorvo (J. Hallett and T.P. Pereira, The Oriental Carpet in Portugal, Exhibition Catalogue, Lisbon, 2007, pl. 46, p.117) and another which was sold from The V. and L. Benguiat Private Collection of Rare Old Rugs at the American Art Galleries, 4 & 5 December 1925, lot 34.