.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The knot count is approximately 9V x 8H per cm. sq.
Victorian millionaire Sir Julius Wernher (1850-1912), born in Darmstadt, was the son of a railway engineer of Protestant stock. His talent for business was spotted by a diamond dealer named Jules Porgès of London and Paris, who in 1873, sent Wernher as his agent to the diamond mines of Kimberley, South Africa to buy and export diamonds which is where he made his fortune. In 1903 Wernher returned to England and bought the stately residence Luton Hoo in Bedfordshire where he commissioned Charles Mewes and Arthur Davis, the architects of the Ritz Hotel in London, to redesign the interior in a lavish Edwardian ‘Belle Époque’ style.
During his lifetime Wernher amassed an important collection of works of art that were housed at both his London mansion, Bath House in Piccadilly, and at Luton Hoo. He was advised by the eminent German art historian Wilhelm von Bode (1845-1929) who was made general director of what is now the Berlin State Museums in 1905. Bode, a keen carpet historian, later penned, together with Ernst Kuhnel, Antique Rugs from the Near East, 1922, and could well have advised Wernher on the purchase of this carpet. At the time of his death in London, Wernher was one of the richest men in the United Kingdom with a fortune of £12 million, which subsequently passed into the hands of his son Harold Wernher.
The delicate drawing and graceful design of this carpet, with its striking Oriental-style cloudbands and dancing cranes, is a near copy of an early 16th century Safavid court carpet from North West Persia, formerly in the Clarence H. Mackay collection, New York, now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, published by Friedrich Sarre and Herrman Trenkwald, Altorientalishce Teppiche, Herausgegeben vom Osterreichischen Museum Fur Kunst und Industrie, Vienna, Karl Hiersemann, 1926-28, pl.27.
Victorian millionaire Sir Julius Wernher (1850-1912), born in Darmstadt, was the son of a railway engineer of Protestant stock. His talent for business was spotted by a diamond dealer named Jules Porgès of London and Paris, who in 1873, sent Wernher as his agent to the diamond mines of Kimberley, South Africa to buy and export diamonds which is where he made his fortune. In 1903 Wernher returned to England and bought the stately residence Luton Hoo in Bedfordshire where he commissioned Charles Mewes and Arthur Davis, the architects of the Ritz Hotel in London, to redesign the interior in a lavish Edwardian ‘Belle Époque’ style.
During his lifetime Wernher amassed an important collection of works of art that were housed at both his London mansion, Bath House in Piccadilly, and at Luton Hoo. He was advised by the eminent German art historian Wilhelm von Bode (1845-1929) who was made general director of what is now the Berlin State Museums in 1905. Bode, a keen carpet historian, later penned, together with Ernst Kuhnel, Antique Rugs from the Near East, 1922, and could well have advised Wernher on the purchase of this carpet. At the time of his death in London, Wernher was one of the richest men in the United Kingdom with a fortune of £12 million, which subsequently passed into the hands of his son Harold Wernher.
The delicate drawing and graceful design of this carpet, with its striking Oriental-style cloudbands and dancing cranes, is a near copy of an early 16th century Safavid court carpet from North West Persia, formerly in the Clarence H. Mackay collection, New York, now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, published by Friedrich Sarre and Herrman Trenkwald, Altorientalishce Teppiche, Herausgegeben vom Osterreichischen Museum Fur Kunst und Industrie, Vienna, Karl Hiersemann, 1926-28, pl.27.