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Lot Essay
The most familiar Ushak carpets are the Medallion Ushaks, designed with two primary ornaments which alternate diagonally in an endless repeat pattern cut by the border. Almost all examples fall into one of two colour schemes: carpets with a blue ground, with the primary medallion in red, yellow or ivory and the secondary medallion in lighter blue, and those with a red ground, as seen in the present lot, with blue primary medallions and brown, blue or, as is the case here, green secondary medallions.
The background decoration on all Medallion Ushaks is filled with a standard leaf-and-stem design in a single colour devoid of outline. Those woven on a red ground display the pattern in blue, while carpets with a blue ground are woven with a contrasting yellow or ivory pattern. This floral tracery encloses the large central and the smaller secondary medallions, filling the space until there are no voids remaining.
The elegant drawing and intense colouring of this fragment is comparable to that seen in the impressive Medallion Ushak carpet at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (T .71-1914) which displays a similar red ground field colour which, as in the present fragment, is echoed in the border.
Both in arrangement and colour, the border preserved here is almost identical to the border of a remarkable ivory ground Medallion Ushak carpet preserved in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (acc.no. 1984.69). The higher proportion of yellow used in the palmettes of the border differs from the more commonly found borders in which the yellow petals alternate with midnight blue (see, for example, Friedrich Spuhler, The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection: Carpets and Textiles, London, 1998, p.48, no.7). The guard stripe used on this fragment is unusual for Medallion Ushak carpets which more frequently display a meandering stripe, however, a similar guard stripe appears on a Star Ushak carpet preserved in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (acc.no.22.100.110).
The background decoration on all Medallion Ushaks is filled with a standard leaf-and-stem design in a single colour devoid of outline. Those woven on a red ground display the pattern in blue, while carpets with a blue ground are woven with a contrasting yellow or ivory pattern. This floral tracery encloses the large central and the smaller secondary medallions, filling the space until there are no voids remaining.
The elegant drawing and intense colouring of this fragment is comparable to that seen in the impressive Medallion Ushak carpet at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (T .71-1914) which displays a similar red ground field colour which, as in the present fragment, is echoed in the border.
Both in arrangement and colour, the border preserved here is almost identical to the border of a remarkable ivory ground Medallion Ushak carpet preserved in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (acc.no. 1984.69). The higher proportion of yellow used in the palmettes of the border differs from the more commonly found borders in which the yellow petals alternate with midnight blue (see, for example, Friedrich Spuhler, The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection: Carpets and Textiles, London, 1998, p.48, no.7). The guard stripe used on this fragment is unusual for Medallion Ushak carpets which more frequently display a meandering stripe, however, a similar guard stripe appears on a Star Ushak carpet preserved in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (acc.no.22.100.110).