The town of Cuenca, near Guadalajara, appears from surviving examples to have been the most productive of the Spanish weaving centres in the seventeenth century. While the technique is the same as that of all of Spain, with knots tied onto single warps in alternating rows, the colours and designs are usually immediately recognisable. The vast majority of them are of Turkish inspiration. One finds copies of 'Transylvanian' spandrel designs (Torres, José Ferrandis: Exposicion de Alfombras Antiguas Españolas, Madrid, 1933, no.61, pl.XLII), Ottoman Cairene border designs (same rug), Ushak medallion carpets (Torres: op.cit., no.58, pl.XLI), and most frequently the 'Lotto' field, as in the present rug. One remarkable example of this design measuring 447 x 415cm. (Torres: op.cit, no.56, pl.XXXVIII) was obviously woven for a specific commission; the centre of the field has a large panel containing a heraldic double-headed eagle, almost certainly the symbol of the Hapsburgs who ruled Spain in the sixteenth century and who married into the Spanish Royal family in the seventeenth and eighteenth.