Lot Essay
The illustration in Kendrick and Tattersall noted above clearly shows the carpet before its most recent restoration. At that time, while the field was cut through at the lower end of the carpet, there was an extra section of field about 1ft. long. The present lower end border has been made from fragments from this extra section.
A field of extensive cloudbands arranged on vertical and horizontal axes combined with palmettes is found on two or more medallion carpets, one in the Musée des Arts Decoratifs in Paris dating from the first half of the sixteenth century (Pope, A.U.: A Survey of Persian Art, Oxford, 1938, pl.1155), the other, reduced at one end, in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Bennett, I.: The Country Life book of Rugs and Carpets of the World, London, 1977, ill.p.87). While is is a relatively rare motif, it obviously continued through to the following century as evidenced by the present carpet.
A large fragment with a very similar field to the present lot, probably representing a slightly later version of the same design to judge from the cramped drawing of the palmettes, is in the Trk ve Islam Eserleri Museum, Istanbul (Yetkin, S.: op.cit., vol.1, pl.83). A further incomplete carpet is in the Kirchheim Collection with better drawn palmettes which dominate the field, rendering the cloudbands a secondary motif (Kirchheim, E. Heinrich: Orient Stars, A Carpet Collection, Stuttgart and London, 1993, no.78, pp.144-145). Particularly from their border designs, these two carpets can be attributed to the Caucasus and probably Karabagh. Thus over the two hundred years between the first and last, the design migrated over the present-day political border. The present border design, coupled with the technical analysis of this carpet, both indicate a North West Persian rather than Caucasian origin, which would therefore also support a date of late in the 17th century.
A field of extensive cloudbands arranged on vertical and horizontal axes combined with palmettes is found on two or more medallion carpets, one in the Musée des Arts Decoratifs in Paris dating from the first half of the sixteenth century (Pope, A.U.: A Survey of Persian Art, Oxford, 1938, pl.1155), the other, reduced at one end, in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Bennett, I.: The Country Life book of Rugs and Carpets of the World, London, 1977, ill.p.87). While is is a relatively rare motif, it obviously continued through to the following century as evidenced by the present carpet.
A large fragment with a very similar field to the present lot, probably representing a slightly later version of the same design to judge from the cramped drawing of the palmettes, is in the Trk ve Islam Eserleri Museum, Istanbul (Yetkin, S.: op.cit., vol.1, pl.83). A further incomplete carpet is in the Kirchheim Collection with better drawn palmettes which dominate the field, rendering the cloudbands a secondary motif (Kirchheim, E. Heinrich: Orient Stars, A Carpet Collection, Stuttgart and London, 1993, no.78, pp.144-145). Particularly from their border designs, these two carpets can be attributed to the Caucasus and probably Karabagh. Thus over the two hundred years between the first and last, the design migrated over the present-day political border. The present border design, coupled with the technical analysis of this carpet, both indicate a North West Persian rather than Caucasian origin, which would therefore also support a date of late in the 17th century.