CENTRAL PERSIA, MID 17TH CENTURY

This carpet belongs to the "Golden Age" of Persian carpet weaving during the Safavid era. The classic design of scrolling, flowering vine set upon a red ground reflects what was probably a step forward in the development of the pattern with the inclusion of the saz leaf. Diminutive in size and nowhere near as flourishing as it will become later in the century, it is there nonetheless, terminating each tendril. For more information, see Jessica Hallett, "From the Looms of Yazd and Isfahan", Carpets and Textiles in the Iranian World, Oxford and Genoa 2010, pp.90-123.

The choice and arrangement of motifs in the field are similar to a carpet which was in the collection of Benjamin Altman, today in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (acc.no.14.49.711). The border on our carpet, however, finds a closer match in a carpet which is in the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon (acc.no.28Tp). That carpet, formerly in the Convento de Santa Maria in Semide, has been attributed, based on its border, to the mid-seventeenth century. A comparable example, formerly in the Rothschild collection, sold Derniers Souvenirs de Ferrières, Christie's Paris, 16 November 2023, lot 138, and another sold in these Rooms, 28 October 2020, lot 177.