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Lot Essay
The knot count is approximately 9V x 9H per cm. sq.
This beautiful silk and metal-thread carpet is one of the masterpieces of Koum Kapi weaving. From the same private European family collection as the Koum Kapi sold in these Rooms, April 24, 2012, lot 50, this example uses an even wider range of colours and a greater amount of silver and gold thread brocading. The field design of this carpet is closely related to a pair of early 17th-century Kirman 'Vase' carpets, one formerly in the Berlin Staatliche Museum and sadly thought to have been destroyed during World War II, illustrated in Friedrich Sarre and Hermann Trenkwald, Old Oriental Carpets, Leipzig, 1926, vol.II, pl.6 and the other still extant carpet is the Baltimore Museum 'Vase' carpet (see May H. Beattie, Carpets of Central Persia, exhibition catalogue, Sheffield and Birmingham, 1976, no 51, p.77).
The present example belongs to a small group of unsigned and unusually large Koum Kapi carpets, the quality and technical brilliance of which suggest that they were most likely woven in the workshop of the Koum Kapi master weaver, Zareh Penyamin. Zareh is known to have worked on a series of larger carpets towards the end of his career and at least five yellow-ground carpets of classical designs are known to exist, some of which are signed and some unsigned, all of which have similar borders to the present example.
This beautiful silk and metal-thread carpet is one of the masterpieces of Koum Kapi weaving. From the same private European family collection as the Koum Kapi sold in these Rooms, April 24, 2012, lot 50, this example uses an even wider range of colours and a greater amount of silver and gold thread brocading. The field design of this carpet is closely related to a pair of early 17th-century Kirman 'Vase' carpets, one formerly in the Berlin Staatliche Museum and sadly thought to have been destroyed during World War II, illustrated in Friedrich Sarre and Hermann Trenkwald, Old Oriental Carpets, Leipzig, 1926, vol.II, pl.6 and the other still extant carpet is the Baltimore Museum 'Vase' carpet (see May H. Beattie, Carpets of Central Persia, exhibition catalogue, Sheffield and Birmingham, 1976, no 51, p.77).
The present example belongs to a small group of unsigned and unusually large Koum Kapi carpets, the quality and technical brilliance of which suggest that they were most likely woven in the workshop of the Koum Kapi master weaver, Zareh Penyamin. Zareh is known to have worked on a series of larger carpets towards the end of his career and at least five yellow-ground carpets of classical designs are known to exist, some of which are signed and some unsigned, all of which have similar borders to the present example.