NORTH WEST PERSIA, CIRCA 1920

The PETAG workshop (Persische Teppiche A.G.), was a German initiative founded in Berlin in 1911. Guided by the scholar Heinrich Jacoby, author of “Eine Sammlung Orientalischer Teppiche”, Berlin, 1923, amongst other works, a large workshop was opened in Tabriz. The carpets are identified by the use of a particularly high quality, lustrous wool, the natural vegetal dyes and their distinctive 'signature' formed of three çintamani roundels generally located in the far corner of the field or border pattern.
The design of the present carpet is a close copy of an early 17th century 'Vase' carpet fragment housed in the Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna (Angela Völker, Die orientalischen Knüpfteppiche im MAK, Vienna, 2001, pl.95, pp.270-1). At the end of the 19th century/early 20th century, there were a number of highly important publications on the history of Oriental carpets which included large-scale black and white, and more importantly, some colour illustrations, of magnificent Safavid and Ottoman carpets. Publications such as, A History of Oriental Carpets before 1800, by F.R. Martin, Stockholm, 1908; Friedrich Sarre's, Orientalische Teppiche, Vienna, 1892, and, Alt-Orientalische Teppiche, by F. Sarre and Herrman Trenkwald, Vienna, 1926, gave the workshop access, for the first time, to the great 16th and 17th century carpet designs.