Details
A CAUCASIAN RUNNER
PROBABLY SEYCHOUR, NORTH CAUCASUS, LATE 18TH CENTURY

The white ground with diagonal rows of polychrome floral sprays overall and a small rose-coloured goat in the lower right corner, all within a rose tone-on-tone palmette, curling leaf and flowerhead meandering vine border between narrow deep brown and pale indigo reciprocal Y-motif guard borders, reduced in length, dog-eared corners, partial end borders with outer guard stripes re-attached, slightly tattered selvages and ends, ends now bound, partially oxidized browns, minor repairs, one 2in. x 1 1/2in. area of exposed warps with missing weft center left inner guard border, other relatively minor areas of wear
Approximately 9ft.11in. x 3ft.5in. (302cm. x 104cm.)

Warp: wool, ivory with a few light brown threads, Z3S, hardly undulating
Weft: 2 shoots, white cotton, Z2S, undulating
Pile: wool, Z2S, sometimes single strands of light grey and violet, symmetrical inclining to the right, H3.0 x V3.9/cm.
Remarks: sometimes irregular knotting; to compensate at times one or other of the loops of a knot is passed around two warps
Provenance
Acquired 9 August 1937 as a "Yordes"
Literature
Alte Teppiche des 16.-18.Jahrhunderts der Firma L.Bernheimer, Munich, 1959, pl.30.
Schrmann, U.: Teppiche aus dem Caucasus/Caucasian Rugs, Braunschweig, n.d. (1964), pl.114.
HALI, Vol.I, no.3, (1978) p.300, pl.1.

Lot Essay

This rug is remarkable both for the field design and for its border. The combination of the floral meander border design with its execution in two tones of pink appears in the well-known Seychour rugs of the nineteenth century. The proportions here are however considerably more open, which is usually considered an early feature in Caucasian rugs, making a date of the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century most probable. Schrmann dates the rug to the 17th/18th century, but at this date it would have no stylistic counterparts at all within the known corpus of carpets.

The field design shows clearly the influence of South Persian 'vase' carpets of the seventeenth century. Various other instances of this movement of designs from 17th century Kirman to 18th century north west Persia can be observed within the Bernheimer Collection (cf. lots 59 and 151 for example), but rarely can it be seen as clearly as here having travelled well into the Caucasus. As ever in the later developments the design has been simplified and made more angular, while at the same time having less variation within the individual motifs. Nevertheless the influence of rugs such as one in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Martin, F.R.: A History of Oriental Carpets before 1800, Vienna, 1908, p.87, fig.185) is very clearly observable.

This rug appears to be unique in the publications of Caucasian rugs, its design and colouring providing a fascinating illustration of the weavings of the Northern Caucasus at this formative stage.

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