NORTH INDIA, CIRCA 1890

The design of this Agra carpet is copied from an 18th century Kurdish carpet from north west Persia in the Österreichisches Museum fur angewandte Kunst, Wien, 1980, pp.260-1, pl.92. The exaggerated hooked serrated leaves that enclose paired palmettes draws its design from earlier 16th and 17th century Khorasan carpets such as another in the same museum in Vienna, pl.88. While the Indian weavers were unlikely to have seen the present carpet in person it is more probable that they used the colourful illustration published by F. Sarre and H. Trenkwald as the design source, (Alt-Orientalische Teppiche, Vienna and Leipzig, 1926, vol.1, pl. 19) .