SOUTH EAST PERSIA, 17TH CENTURY

The present border design is one which is found on a small number of 'vase' carpets, both with field designs with the more normal three-plane lattice field (Benguiat sale, American Art Association, New York, 19-22 November 1922, lot 735; Christine Klose, 'Betrachtungen zu nordwestpersischen Gartenteppichen des 18. Jahrhunderts' HALI, volume 1, no. 2, Summer 1978, pl. 8, p. 118) and those with single plane designs (May Beattie, Carpets of Central Persia with special reference to Rugs of Kirman, Sheffield and Birmingham exhibition catalogue, Westerham, 1976, no. 56, pp. 80-81; and Christie's London, 15 October 1998, lot 317). Its form, as May Beattie points out, derives from an abstraction of an early 'vase' carpet (and for that matter Mughal carpet) field design element (as in Beattie: op.cit., no. 14, p. 49). A near identical border fragment is published together with a number of other Safavid south Persian carpet borders in F.R.Martin, A History of Oriental Carpets Before 1800, Vienna, 1908, pl.XX, (see lot 175 in the present sale). This same border can also be seen later on a small group of south Persian weavings which use a different technique but take their field and border designs from 'vase' carpets (Werner Grote-Hasenbalg, Der Orientteppich, seine Geschichte und seine Kultur, Berlin, 1922, vol. III, pl. 62; also one sold in these Rooms 21 October 1993, lot 519).