NORTH INDIA, 17TH CENTURY

Details

A MUGHAL RUG
North India, 17th century
The raspberry-red ground scattered with a variety of flowering trees including cypress trees overlaid with plum-blossom trees alternating with floral sprays issuing from flower-vases, in a broad indigo border of elegantly drawn rosettes and palmettes linked by serrated leaves between ivory split palmette and minor S-motif, X-motif and reciprocal skittle-pattern stripes, even overall wear, scattered small areas of repiling and old tinting, a couple of old reweaves especially at one end
6 ft. 8 in. x 4 ft. 5 in. (210 cm. x 140 cm.)

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Lot Essay

A number of Persian carpets of the 16th century, both from Tabriz and from Kirman, show the motif of a cypress tree overlaid by a plum-blossom tree as a minor motif (A. U. Pope: A Survey of Persian Art, Oxford, 1938, pls. 1126, 1127, 1203, 1213; Bernheimer Family Collection of Carpets, Christie's, London, 14 Feb 1996, lot 89). Only in the last example is the motif found, as here, scattered over the entire field. In Indian carpets this embodies a most unusual feature; they tend to depict each motif in its own space, rather than having the different planes of design so beloved of the Persians. The strongly Persianate influence seen here indicates a date from late in the 16th or early in the 17th century, very early in the development of Indian carpets.

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