CENTRAL PERSIA, FIRST HALF 17TH CENTURY

To the taste of the time this 'Polonaise' rug must have seemed a little passé in design to the fully fashion-conscious members of the court of Shah 'Abbas in Isfahan. Most carpets of the type we now know as 'Polonaise', woven in silk and metal-thread, were being woven filled with scrolling leaves and forms of a much more baroque nature than is seen here. The present rug, with its close stylistic links with the sixteenth century silk carpets such as the Czartoryski, Liechtenstein, and Rainey Rogers/Kevorkian rugs, belongs in spirit at the end of the previous century (Pope, 1938, pls.1242 and 1243; Christie's London, 11 October 1990, lot 34; Sotheby's New York, 8 December 1990, lot 54). With the whole field being held together by the scrolling blue tendrils, the design is particularly close to that of the Czartoryski rug in spirit.

The technique of weaving is however identical to that of the normal 'Polonaise' group with its heavy cotton foundation, as opposed to the silk foundation and floppier handle of the three rugs mentioned above. It is therefore likely to date from the early years of production in this new technique, still maintaining the overall field of spirals which in its origins dates back into the fifteenth century. Another similar rug is in the Diocesan Museum, Sandomierz, Poland, donated to the church at Studzianna by King John III Sobieski to be placed before the altar of the Holy Virgin the Generous after his victory at Vienna (Slota, in Robert Pinner and Walter B. Denny, 1985, pp.93-95). In the design of these two rugs the relationship of the design to that of the wool products of Isfahan of the same period is much more obvious than in the normal 'Polonaise' rugs.