The re-entrant prayer rug design was one of the options produced in relatively small quantities through from the fifteenth century for at least four hundred years (see lot 65 for a late example). The present rug, while late in the sequence, is a most unusual variant on the type, having reversed the direction of one of the niches to provide a directional design. The central medallion however remains almost totally unchanged from the early sixteenth century original (Mills, John: "The Bellini, Keyhole or re-entrant Rugs", Hali 58, August 1991, pp.86-103, esp.pls. 19, 20, 26 and 29).