NORTH WEST PERSIA, FIRST HALF 16TH CENTURY

This is a Tabriz medallion rug remarkable for its small size. Rugs of this size abound in miniatures, but examples in the otherwise well-represented Tabriz medallion group of carpets are virtually unknown. The design is identical in form with a number of the better known large examples, such as the Gulbenkian (Pope, Arthur Upham: A Survey of Persian Art, Oxford, 1938, pl.1122), former Berlin (Pope, op.cit., pl.1124) and Alexander examples (Alexander, Christopher: A Foreshadowing of 21st Century Art, the Color and Geometry of Very Early Turkish Carpets, New York and Oxford, 1993, pp.182-9). The execution is slightly less curvilinear than the above, but that will be partly as a result of the diminution of size of the motifs.