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Lot Essay
Only two other fragments of this unusual 16th century European carpet are known. One, formerly in the Wher collection of the late Signor Dall'Oglio, exhibited at the Hayward Gallery, London in 1983 (King & Sylvester, p.76) was later sold at Christie's London, 3 May 2001, lot 80. The other, formerly part of the Christopher Alexander Collection (A Foreshadowing of 21st Century Art; The Colour and Geometry of Very Early Turkish Carpets, Oxford, 1993, pp.162-7) was later sold at Sotheby's London, 2 November, 2017, lot 34. Both of those fragments and the present lot are all part of the only known green-ground 'Bird' carpet that, according to Alexander, come from the same schloss in Austria. All three display part of the deep green field with 'bird' ornamentations together with a section of the golden border which displays an apparently unique border pattern formed of spotted ivory curved leaves.
The origin of this fascinating carpet remains open to conjecture. The Turkish originals of the so-called 'Bird' carpets are attributed to the Ushak region of west Anatolia but were woven mostly for the European market, illustrated by the example bearing the coat of arms of Andreas Prochniki, Archbishop of Lvov from 1614 to 1633, now in the Mediterranean Museum, Stockholm. Exports from Turkey however were not only extremely costly but also very difficult to obtain and wealthy patrons in Europe began to consider commissioning copies closer to home. The earliest known records of carpets being made in Europe in an eastern style refer to 13th century Saracenic carpet weavers in France (HALI, vol.1, no.2, pp. 208-9). The collection of the Duke of Buccleuch at Boughton House, Northamptonshire, holds a carpet of Star Ushak design and two of 'Lotto' design woven with dates from the late sixteenth century which are direct copies of Turkish originals and are most likely to be of British manufacture.
According to Alexander, Jean Lefevre believed that the carpet had been woven in Spain in the 15th century, while he attributes it to France, based on the fact that a green-ground pile rug with a different field design is depicted in the Duc de Berry Très Riches Heures. It is true that the present carpet does not have the tight and dense structure normally associated with the English knotted pile "Turkyee-worke" that was used extensively for upholstery for the next hundred years or so. Yet the quality of the wool and hues are very much in the English taste and differ in that regard from contemporaneous hand-knotted German carpets, such as one in London (A. F. Kendrick, Victoria and Albert Museum, Catalogue of Tapestries, London, 1924) and another in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nürnberg (HALI, vol.4, no.3, p.79). As no French hand-knotted pile carpets are known to survive from this period, an attribution to England seems the most probable option.
The origin of this fascinating carpet remains open to conjecture. The Turkish originals of the so-called 'Bird' carpets are attributed to the Ushak region of west Anatolia but were woven mostly for the European market, illustrated by the example bearing the coat of arms of Andreas Prochniki, Archbishop of Lvov from 1614 to 1633, now in the Mediterranean Museum, Stockholm. Exports from Turkey however were not only extremely costly but also very difficult to obtain and wealthy patrons in Europe began to consider commissioning copies closer to home. The earliest known records of carpets being made in Europe in an eastern style refer to 13th century Saracenic carpet weavers in France (HALI, vol.1, no.2, pp. 208-9). The collection of the Duke of Buccleuch at Boughton House, Northamptonshire, holds a carpet of Star Ushak design and two of 'Lotto' design woven with dates from the late sixteenth century which are direct copies of Turkish originals and are most likely to be of British manufacture.
According to Alexander, Jean Lefevre believed that the carpet had been woven in Spain in the 15th century, while he attributes it to France, based on the fact that a green-ground pile rug with a different field design is depicted in the Duc de Berry Très Riches Heures. It is true that the present carpet does not have the tight and dense structure normally associated with the English knotted pile "Turkyee-worke" that was used extensively for upholstery for the next hundred years or so. Yet the quality of the wool and hues are very much in the English taste and differ in that regard from contemporaneous hand-knotted German carpets, such as one in London (A. F. Kendrick, Victoria and Albert Museum, Catalogue of Tapestries, London, 1924) and another in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nürnberg (HALI, vol.4, no.3, p.79). As no French hand-knotted pile carpets are known to survive from this period, an attribution to England seems the most probable option.