NORTH WEST PERSIA, CIRCA 1920

The PETAG workshop (Persische Teppiche A.G.), was a German initiative founded in Berlin in 1911. Guided by the scholar Heinrich Jacoby, author of “Eine Sammlung Orientalischer Teppiche”, Berlin, 1923, amongst other works, a large workshop was opened in Tabriz. The carpets are identified by the use of a particularly high quality, lustrous wool, the natural vegetal dyes and their distinctive 'signature' formed of three çintamani roundels generally located in the far corner of the field or border pattern. At the end of the 19th century/early 20th century, there were a number of highly important publications on the history of Oriental carpets which included large-scale black and white, and more importantly, some colour illustrations, of magnificent Safavid and Ottoman carpets. Publications such as A History of Oriental Carpets before 1800, by F.R. Martin, Stockholm, 1908; Friedrich Sarre's, Orientalische Teppiche, Vienna, 1892, and Alt-Orientalische Teppiche, by F. Sarre and Herrman Trenkwald, Vienna, 1926, gave the workshop access, for the first time, to the great 16th and 17th century carpet designs.
The present directional lozenge 'vase' pattern can be seen on a carpet formerly in the Baltimore Museum of Art and now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (M. S. Dimand. & J.Mailey, Oriental Rugs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1973, fig.103). This particular overall repeat pattern was highly adaptable when weaving carpets of varying proportions as seen in three examples sold at Christie's, London, 1 May 2003, lot 48; New York, 12 December 2006, lot 123 and London 28 October 2020, lot 191.