NORTH WEST PERSIA, CIRCA 1890

The character depicted in the present lot is most likely do-rūy or 'two-faced', one of ten demons known as dīv who appear in the epic poem, the Shahnameh (Mahmoud Omidsalar, Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. VII, 1995, pp. 428-431). The dīv have an external soul which can be kept in the body of a live fish and once defeated by a hero, they are taken as their slaves (ibid, Omidsalar, 1995, pp.428-431); this is alluded to by the fish moustache and shackles around our figure’s ankles. In using a trompe-l'œil technique when portraying the face, which can be read from either end of the rug, our weaver has achieved a level of complexity and a design for which we can find no direct comparable.