A 'TRANSYLVANIAN' PRAYER RUG

WEST ANATOLIA, POSSIBLY GHIORDES, SECOND HALF 17TH CENTURY

Details

A 'TRANSYLVANIAN' PRAYER RUG
WEST ANATOLIA, POSSIBLY GHIORDES, SECOND HALF 17TH CENTURY
The plain shaded red field with a stepped and shouldered ivory mihrab arch filled with complex interlaced angular brown arabesques, in a golden yellow border of palmettes alternating with rosettes, each with paired serrated leaves and stylised hyacinth sprays between beige stellar flowerhead and cloudband, polychrome striped and minor barber pole stripes, worn, areas of restoration, left-hand border very fragmentary
5ft.8in. x 4ft. (173cm. x 122cm.)

Provenance

Lefevre, London, 27 April 1979, lot 23.

Literature

Alexander, Christopher: A Foreshadowing of 21st Century Art, the Color and Geometry of Very Early Turkish Carpets, New York and Oxford, 1993, pp.320-321.

Lot Essay

This rug has a rare design in the spandrels which derives from the interlaced arabesques of the late 16th and early 17th century, although they have become stylised in a way here almost to suggest dragon forms. A very similar rug but with oatmeal field is in the Museum of Applied Arts, Budapest (Oler, N. (intro by): Turkish Carpets from the 13th-18th centuries, Istanbul, 1996, pl.153, p.213), another is in the Keir Collection (Spuhler, F.: Islamic Carpets and Textiles in the Keir Collection, London, 1978, no.26, pp.56-7), while a third is in the Turk ve Islam Museum, Istanbul (Alexander: op. cit, fig.p.320).

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