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Lot Essay
Only four examples of this type of Bergama rug are currently known. One is illustrated in Heinrich Jacoby, Eine Sammlung Orientalischer Teppiche, Leipzig, 1923, p.91, pl.25, and is now in the Brooklyn Museum. A second, even more similar rug is published by Eberhart Herrmann, Seltene Orientteppiche, vol.X, München, 1988, p.44-45, pl.16. With the latter piece our rug shares the little hooks leading from the inner border into the field, the scattered minor geometric polychrome motifs in the field as well as the stylised minute blossoms spread all over the broad yellow border.
The fourth example, once in the McMullan Collection and now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, was, together with the Jacoby/Brooklyn rug, the only known piece until the mid 1960s. It shows the same features in a slight variation (Joseph V. McMullan, Islamic Carpets, New York, 1965, pp.332-333, pl.114). The proportion of field and border are different partly due to the inserted small medallion around which the flowerheads are grouped in rows and the slightly wider inner guard stripe. The stylised angular palmettes in the border are not as widely proportioned as in the other three examples leaving more space between the various motifs. The confrontation of the palmettes in the three main rugs considerably increases the tension in the design.
The fourth example, once in the McMullan Collection and now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, was, together with the Jacoby/Brooklyn rug, the only known piece until the mid 1960s. It shows the same features in a slight variation (Joseph V. McMullan, Islamic Carpets, New York, 1965, pp.332-333, pl.114). The proportion of field and border are different partly due to the inserted small medallion around which the flowerheads are grouped in rows and the slightly wider inner guard stripe. The stylised angular palmettes in the border are not as widely proportioned as in the other three examples leaving more space between the various motifs. The confrontation of the palmettes in the three main rugs considerably increases the tension in the design.