CIRCA 1800

While a few early prayer rugs from Persia and India are known, it is Turkish prayer rugs that in terms of quantity vastly outnumber all others put together through the 17th to the early 19th century. It is not surprising therefore that when Persian weavers in the 19th century wanted to make a prayer rug they looked to Anatolian prototypes for ideas on design. The present rug is almost an exact copy of an early 18th century Ghiordes rug, but with the vibrant colouring and structure more typical of the Fereghan district. A rug which appears very possibly to be from the same workshop, with almost identical borders but a red field of large palmettes was attributed by Franz Bausback to East Anatolia, circa 1700 (Anatolische Knüpfteppiche aus vier Jahrhunderten, Mannheim 1978, pp.32-3).