MID-18TH CENTURY

Details

AN EARLY AUBUSSON PILE CARPET
Mid-18th Century
Having a polychrome floral bouquet on the shaded sage field flanked by honeycomb cartouches with in the cream floral blossom border
Approximately 18ft. 8in. x 13ft. 4in. (569cm. x 406cm.)

Provenance

Condé Nast Collection; Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, 7-9 January, 1943, lot 324, ($2,500 as Louis XVI, Southern French or Spanish, 18th Century).

Special notice

Christie's is selling all lots in this sale as agent for an organization which holds a State of New York Exempt Organization certificate. Seller explicitly reserves all trademark and trade name rights and rights of privacy and publicity in the name and image of Doris Duke. No buyer of any property in this sale will acquire any right to use the Doris Duke name or image. Seller further explicitly reserves all copyright rights in designs or other copyrightable works included in the property offered for sale. No buyer of any property in the sale will acquire the rights to reproduce, distribute copies of, or prepare derivative works of such designs or copyrightable works.

Sale room notice

Please note that this carpet has been reduced in size.

Lot Essay

The naive, almost whimsical drawing and technique of this carpet indicates that it is probably an early attempt at pile-carpet weaving in Aubusson. In the 1740's, entrepreneurial merchants and weavers began experimenting with the production of carpets in the long established tapestry workshops of Aubusson. At first, the designs imitated Persian and Turkish carpets, but, by the late 1740's and early 1750's they began weaving carpets in the rococo style that dominated all of the French arts. For a comparable Aubusson of similar handling, please see Floret, Elisabeth, Great Carpets of the World, Paris, 1996.

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