EAST TURKESTAN, 19TH CENTURY

This elegant silk Yarkand fragment appears to have once been part of the very unusual and beautiful carpet formerly in the collection of Hagop Kervorkian (Anderson Galleries, New York, The Hagop Kevorkian Collection Part Two, 8 to 9 January 1926, lot 309 (described as ‘Mongolian’)). When the carpet was published in 1926 it measured 386cm. in length, and would appear to have already been reduced. However, when then carpet was published in Jon Thompson, Silk Carpets and the Silk Road, Tokyo, 1988, p. 51, pl. 48, the length is only 335cm., which would suggest due to the similarity in dimension to our fragment that it was removed from the carpet in the intervening years between the Kevorkian sale and 1988. The palette of rusty golden tones is typical of many 19th century East Turkestan carpets, and it is possible that the original design is derived from Mughal Indian rugs, which had a profound influence on East Turkestan weaving in the 17th century (Michael Franses, 'Silk Pile Covers from Western China', First Under Heaven: The Art of Asia, Hali Annual Four, London, 1997, pp.104-105).