18TH CENTURY

The design of the present carpet has its roots in a sub-group of 17th century Kirman ‘vase’ carpets, such as the famous Gulbenkian and the Mrs E. T. Brown sickle leaf carpets (Arthur Upham Pope, A Survey of Persian Art, Oxford, 1938, pl.1235 and 1236). Two early 18th century carpets illustrated by Charles Grant Ellis in Early Caucasian Carpets, Washington, 1975, pl.19 and 22, p.68 and p.74 are interesting contemporaneous examples of the migration of these designs from South East to North West Persia. The present carpet relates very closely to a kelleh illustrated in Sarre and Trenkwald, Old Oriental Carpets, Vienna, 1926/1928, pl. 17 and 18 and another example in the Skokloster Castle, Sweden, illustrated in F.R. Martin (F.R. Martin, A History of Oriental Carpets Before 1900, Vienna, 1908, pl.XXII). The structure and colouration of our carpet relates closely to another North West Persian kelleh of Safavid Isfahan design, formerly in the collections of F.R. Martin and C.R. Lamm, that was sold in these Rooms, 5 April 2011, lot 104.