WEST PERSIA, THIRD QUARTER 19TH CENTURY

The exquisite design and vivacity of colour of the present carpet had, by the 19th century, become so well associated with the north west that it was given the name 'Garrus', a small weaving centre near to Bijar, although it was not exclusively woven there. One of the best known carpets from that group, inscribed as being the work of Garrus and dated 1794, was formerly in the McMullan Collection, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (M.S. Dimand and Jean Mailey, Oriental Rugs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1973, fig.120, p.87). The same large-scale tre-foil palmettes, issuing star-like anemones appear on a carpet sold as part of the Dani and Anna Ghigo Collection, in these Rooms, 12 May 2016, lot 315. A further related example is illustrated in Murray L. Eiland Jr. & Murray Eiland III, Oriental Carpets, A Complete Guide, New York, 1973, fig.72, p.102. The richly coloured elegant design lent itself to the demands of the European interior particularly in the second half of the 19th century, and as a result a number of examples are found today in country houses through Britain and Western Europe.