Lot Essay
This rug belongs to an extremely rare group of West Anatolian rugs in which only six other examples have been identified. The field design of this group is extremely unusual within the context of early Anatolian weaving in that it is composed of repeating vertical stripes of a border design. Christine Klose has identified the seven rugs of this design group as follows: the Bernheimer rug, a rug in Cairo, a rug in the possesion of Alberto Boralevi in Florence, a rug with Galerie Chevalier in Paris, a rug in an anonymous private collection, a rug in the London market in 1937, and a rug in a Berlin auction in the 1930s (see Klose, Christine: "Anatolian Carpets with Wave Bands in a Stripe Design," Oriental Rug Review, Vol. XI, no.5, pp.49-51 for a listing of cited references for each piece. Klose also notes that the listed private collection rug may be one of the rugs on the London or Berlin market, which could bring the known examples to six ).