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Lot Essay
One other carpet that has been published is clearly from the same workshop. It is another very large weaving that was sold in these Rooms, 15 October, 1998, lot 230. The field design of 'in and out palmettes' is the same in both but it is the scale of the flowering vine in the border set against the rich yellow ground that immediately links the two.
The drawing of the border of this carpet is spectacular. It is difficult however to find any parallel for this exuberance. It recalls the printed cotton worked in Goolconda or Burhanpour (Steven Cohen, "Textiles", in George Michell (ed.), Islamic Heritage of the Deccan, Bombay, 1986, pls.11-13, p.123). One carpet now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, attributed to Warangal and dated to "c.18th century" has a much stiffer rendition of a very similar design, also on a yellow ground (Steven Cohen, op.cit., pls.9 and 10, p.122). The structure of the present carpet is very different from that of other carpets attributed to Warangal, so the most probable option is another large centre in the Deccan.
The drawing and colour of the remarkable border seen here contain a bit more than an echo of the border of one of the most magnificent carpets ever woven, the Mughal pashmina carpet datign from around 1650 of which a large fragment is now in the Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon (Hali, vol 97, front cover and p.4).
The drawing of the border of this carpet is spectacular. It is difficult however to find any parallel for this exuberance. It recalls the printed cotton worked in Goolconda or Burhanpour (Steven Cohen, "Textiles", in George Michell (ed.), Islamic Heritage of the Deccan, Bombay, 1986, pls.11-13, p.123). One carpet now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, attributed to Warangal and dated to "c.18th century" has a much stiffer rendition of a very similar design, also on a yellow ground (Steven Cohen, op.cit., pls.9 and 10, p.122). The structure of the present carpet is very different from that of other carpets attributed to Warangal, so the most probable option is another large centre in the Deccan.
The drawing and colour of the remarkable border seen here contain a bit more than an echo of the border of one of the most magnificent carpets ever woven, the Mughal pashmina carpet datign from around 1650 of which a large fragment is now in the Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon (Hali, vol 97, front cover and p.4).