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Lot Essay
This carpet is closely related to a transitional group of 18th century carpets with a design of balanced ascending medallions with radiating hooked leaf brackets separated by stylised cypress trees. Comprising nine known examples, all have red-grounds apart from one in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia which is blue and the present carpet which is woven on a golden-yellow ground. Unusually, the example in the Turk ve Islam Museum, Istanbul (inv. no.742) which was found in the Mosque of Korkmāzoğlu at Sivas, is dated AH 1156/1734 AD, which is extremely helpful when placing the group within the development of carpet patterns in the Caucasus. That carpet is extremely similar in design to the present carpet apart from a change in border pattern and ground colour (Serare Yetkin, Early Caucasian Carpets in Turkey, vol.I, pl.24).
One example, formerly in the John D. McIlhenny Collection, is now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Charles Grant Ellis, Oriental Carpets in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, 1988, no.45, pp.144-5) and a fragment of a carpet woven as the pair to the Mcllhenny carpet was offered in these Rooms, 1 May, 2003, lot 36. In his catalogue entry Ellis publishes two other comparable examples including one in the Textile Museum, Washington D.C. (inv. no. 1136.2.4). Two further examples are in the Harold Keshishian Collection (The Treasure of the Caucasus, exhibition catalogue, Washington D.C., 1993, no.2, pp.20-21) and the Kirchheim Collection (E. Heinrich Kirchheim, Orient Stars, a Carpet Collection, Stuttgart and London, 1993, no.71, p.137).
The design repertoire of these pile carpets is closely related to the textile tradition of earlier Persian silk brocades and embroideries and flatweaves produced in the Caucasus in the 17th and 18th centuries. An identical medallion appears embroidered on a Caucasian silk panel in the Textile Museum, Washington, D.C.(inv. no.2.18). One of the most notable Caucasian embroideries, which carries the same design tradition of a bold central medallion with rotating radiating saz leaves, has passed through the hands of some of the greatest collectors and is illustrated, and was once owned, by Ulrich Schürmann, Caucasian Rugs, London, 1964, pl.138. The cypress tree also appears in a heavier geometric form on an 18th century east Anatolian carpet fragment sold in these Rooms, 1 May 200, lot 35.
The present carpet differs slightly from the rest of the group in that it features a double column of radiating medallions, although one cannot be sure if there was a further decorative device used in between as there is a repaired join running along the centre. Woven on a rarer golden yellow ground, the cypress trees on the present lot have grown more squat and rectilinear in form, and the reciprocal trefoil border pattern on all but one of the main group has been replaced by an alternating leaf and flowerhead border, an example of which appears on 18th century ‘Blossom’ carpet (see Belkis Balpinar & Udo Hirsch, Flachgewebe des Vakiflar-Museums, Istanbul, Wesel 1892, pl.77, pp.330-1).
One example, formerly in the John D. McIlhenny Collection, is now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Charles Grant Ellis, Oriental Carpets in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, 1988, no.45, pp.144-5) and a fragment of a carpet woven as the pair to the Mcllhenny carpet was offered in these Rooms, 1 May, 2003, lot 36. In his catalogue entry Ellis publishes two other comparable examples including one in the Textile Museum, Washington D.C. (inv. no. 1136.2.4). Two further examples are in the Harold Keshishian Collection (The Treasure of the Caucasus, exhibition catalogue, Washington D.C., 1993, no.2, pp.20-21) and the Kirchheim Collection (E. Heinrich Kirchheim, Orient Stars, a Carpet Collection, Stuttgart and London, 1993, no.71, p.137).
The design repertoire of these pile carpets is closely related to the textile tradition of earlier Persian silk brocades and embroideries and flatweaves produced in the Caucasus in the 17th and 18th centuries. An identical medallion appears embroidered on a Caucasian silk panel in the Textile Museum, Washington, D.C.(inv. no.2.18). One of the most notable Caucasian embroideries, which carries the same design tradition of a bold central medallion with rotating radiating saz leaves, has passed through the hands of some of the greatest collectors and is illustrated, and was once owned, by Ulrich Schürmann, Caucasian Rugs, London, 1964, pl.138. The cypress tree also appears in a heavier geometric form on an 18th century east Anatolian carpet fragment sold in these Rooms, 1 May 200, lot 35.
The present carpet differs slightly from the rest of the group in that it features a double column of radiating medallions, although one cannot be sure if there was a further decorative device used in between as there is a repaired join running along the centre. Woven on a rarer golden yellow ground, the cypress trees on the present lot have grown more squat and rectilinear in form, and the reciprocal trefoil border pattern on all but one of the main group has been replaced by an alternating leaf and flowerhead border, an example of which appears on 18th century ‘Blossom’ carpet (see Belkis Balpinar & Udo Hirsch, Flachgewebe des Vakiflar-Museums, Istanbul, Wesel 1892, pl.77, pp.330-1).