PROBABLY KARABAGH, SOUTH CAUCASUS, 17TH CENTURY

There has long been a fascination with the symbolism of the dragon and its depiction in carpet weavings. The design of ‘Dragon’ carpets consists of a field pattern composed of different coloured overlaid lattices formed of pointed, serrated leaves creating intersecting lozenges, which alternately contain palmettes and are flanked by confronting stylised dragons, birds or animal figures. The most archaic of the ‘Dragon’ carpets include dragon motifs with birds and running animals relatively naturalistically drawn, which stand either alone or in confronting pairs facing a tree. The Graf carpet, originally found in a Damascene mosque, now in the Islamiches Museum, Berlin, is considered to be the oldest example of this type, see Serare Yetkin, Early Caucasian Carpets in Turkey, Vol. II, London, 1978, p.8, fig.118.

Comprising a section of the corner of the field and narrow guard stripe, this fragment reveals a complex array of colour and bold scale of drawing seen in the sharp saw-toothed palmettes that are characteristic of the group. Woven on a red ground it displays a narrow mid-blue guard stripe with scrolling S-motif. A similar serrated palmette but on a dark brown ground appears on a fragmentary carpet in the Türk ve İslam Eserleri Museum, Istanbul, acquired 13 December 1911. inv. no 739 (54) from the Mosque of Daye Hatun in Bursa, (Yetkin op.cit, pl.18). The design of these carpets went on to inspire ‘Dragon’ Soumac carpets such as the following lot.