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Lot Essay
The Imperial Tapestry Factory was established in 1716 in the vicinity of St. Petersburg by Peter the Great (reigned 1682-1725) and produced tapestries as well as flat-woven and knotted pile carpets for the court. Trained by weavers from the Gobelins manufactory in Paris, these carpets reflect both the French techniques and taste that was preferred in the decorative arts during the reign of Peter the Great and his successors through the 19th century.
It is rare to find the combination of flat-woven and a knotted pile techniques in examples from this period from Russia. The use of both techniques is used to great effect whereby the ivory ground is flat-woven with a delicate and subtle trellis design that allows the pile-woven center panel of a flowering basket with perched birds and the border of a lush mixed-flower garland to be more prominent and textural.
A pile woven Bessarabian carpet with a similar central panel of a lush flowering basket on a simple trellis ground, also with a lush floral garland border was sold at Christie’s London, 5 June 2017, lot 162. A flat woven example with a central landscape panel and lush garland border, possibly from St. Petersburg, sold Sotheby’s New York, 1 June 2006, lot 208.
It is rare to find the combination of flat-woven and a knotted pile techniques in examples from this period from Russia. The use of both techniques is used to great effect whereby the ivory ground is flat-woven with a delicate and subtle trellis design that allows the pile-woven center panel of a flowering basket with perched birds and the border of a lush mixed-flower garland to be more prominent and textural.
A pile woven Bessarabian carpet with a similar central panel of a lush flowering basket on a simple trellis ground, also with a lush floral garland border was sold at Christie’s London, 5 June 2017, lot 162. A flat woven example with a central landscape panel and lush garland border, possibly from St. Petersburg, sold Sotheby’s New York, 1 June 2006, lot 208.