WEST PERSIA, DATED AH 1329/1911-12 AD

The inscription cartouche reads; Farmayesh Aqa-ye Amir Mujahed amal-e Bakhtiari 1329 ('Order of His Excellency Amir Mujahed, the work of [the] Bakhtiari 1911/12)

This unique pictorial carpet is a visually beautiful and historically fascinating document that offers a snap-shot of life at the very end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century in Qajar, Iran. The carpet was commissioned by Yousef Khan-e Amir Mujahed who died in 1938 in his seventies. Yousef was the youngest son of Husain Quli Khan who was considered one of the great Bakhtari Ilkhan leaders. Husain Quli is credited for uniting the Bakhtiari tribes, killing many opponents in the process, and eventually turning the Bakhtiari clan into one of the most powerfully political forces in Qajar Iran. Many of his children became as equally entwined in the political power struggles of the time and Yousef was no exception. In 1916, he was noted as signing a pact with the British Government guaranteeing the safety of their oil pipelines. He lived in a grandiose villa in the village of Shamsabad, in west Persia, which still stands today, retaining some of the original painted ornate interiors (Ian Bennett, ‘Carpets of the Khans, Part 1’, HALI, Issue 43, p.41. fig.2).

Yousef’s wealth and stature allowed him to commission a series of pictorial rugs and carpets that were intended for his personal use in his villa, both on the floor and set within decorative alcoves. According to their various woven inscriptions, the first was woven in 1891, the second in 1906/07 and the third, the present lot and the largest of the three, in 1911/12. (Parviz Tanavoli, Kings, Heroes & Lovers, London, 1994, pp.260-5, pl.79, 80 & 81). According to Bennett, (Bennett, op.cit, fig. 20), the execution of the calligraphy on all three pieces is specifically related to a distinct sub-group of weavings produced in Chahar Mahal. Although woven over a period of twenty years, all three rugs appear to depict the same female figure. The standing woman is, according to Tanavoli, a European beauty who was popularised through contemporary methods of chromolithography and whose image was reproduced countless times in different medium. The first commission was a single portrait of small format unusually woven in a bi-chromatic palette of dark indigo and white which suggests that the weaver was possibly copying the image from a black and white photograph. The woman is seen to be coquettishly playing with her hair and is dressed in an elegant and fashionable outfit of European taste. The ivory background is empty but framed by a pair of arched cypress trees. The second example is again of small format but is woven with a much wider colour palette. In that rug the woman stands between colourful flowering arched trees with perching birds. Her stance and gaze are more stoic, with a basket of flowers resting in the crook of her arm and a small dog at her feet. This style of portraiture is reminiscent of depictions of European women depicted by artists and photographers at the end of the nineteenth century that proved so popular in Iran. The dress on both women on this rug, and the former, is very similar, with the same open neck-line, ruffled sleeves and floral clasp that is fixed to the front of her blouse.

The present carpet is the largest of the three pieces commissioned by Yousef, and indeed the only known pictorial carpet of these impressive proportions. Unlike the previous, smaller, commissions intended for the recessed alcoves within the reception room of his villa, this carpet was woven to fill the floor of the same room. The display of all three pieces together would have been extremely striking and would undoubtedly have created the desired effect. The design of the present carpet is a medley of the two previous rugs with the woman appearing in three different poses. The figure on the left is shown holding in one hand a tar, a Persian stringed instrument, and a floral spray in the other. The dress of the mirrored women flanking the central figure is noticeably more Persian, with the ubiquitous boteh design decorating their tops. While the carpet includes scrolling arabesques in each of the upper corners the branches of each of the trees forms a reassuring frame around the central figures and a natural arch above. Amongst the branches are a great number of perching birds that include storks, herons, pheasants, parrots, song birds and hoopoes, while deer and squirrels roam freely. The depiction of birds is continued in the border where paired parrots appear in the decorative cartouches.

This carpet was undoubtedly an important and very personal commission which passed by descent to the widow of Yousef. Reputedly after much discussion with the family the carpet was purchased by the Iranian artist, sculptor and collector, Parviz Tanavoli, to form part of his personal collection of Persian pictorial rugs on which he wrote. Both the smaller rugs commissioned by Yousef are also now in the Tanavoli collection. In the late 1980s, the carpet was purchased by the Italian Ambassador in Tehran, a personal friend of Tanavoli, in whose collection it has remained ever since.