.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Unlike other Anatolian rugs of this period, the present lot is one of a group that abandoned the predominant geometry and angularity of design and employed a subtle palette with elegant, delicate drawing. This West Anatolian village workshop prayer rug is directly influenced by the magnificent Ottoman carpets produced in the court ateliers of Sulayman the Magnificent in 16th century Turkey, (Joseph V. McMullan, Islamic Carpets, New York, 1965, p.32-3, no.4.)
The present lot is unusual for this particular group of 'Transylvanian' prayer rugs, of which there are eleven recorded examples, whose principle characteristics are defined by a plain field, ivory spandrels with flowering stems and a palmette, lobed blossom and serrated leaf-filled border. The hexagonal cartouche border of the present rug is one that is more commonly associated with the column prayer rugs, an example of which is in the Black Church in Braşov, see 'Transylvanian Turkish Rugs', Museum of Applied Arts, Budapest, 2020, pp.228-229, no.206. A "Transylvanian" prayer rug with the same hexagonal cartouche border and diagonally-striped guard stripes as the present rug but with a plain sandy-yellow field, is in the Hungarian Lutheran Church in Braşov, (Stefano Ionoescu, Antique Ottoman Rugs in Transylvania, Rome, 2005, cat. no,168). Both that rug and the present lot display a small hanging floral pendant in the apex of the arch which recall the hanging mosque lamps used within the churches. Most examples from this group display the more common pale fields, and not the present madder-red field, comparable to The Rothschild-Carlowitz prayer rug, of leaf and blossom border, see HALI, Issue 39, p.43 and George Butterweck, et. al., Antike Anatolische Teppich, Vienna, 1983, pl.9, pp.68-69.
The present lot is unusual for this particular group of 'Transylvanian' prayer rugs, of which there are eleven recorded examples, whose principle characteristics are defined by a plain field, ivory spandrels with flowering stems and a palmette, lobed blossom and serrated leaf-filled border. The hexagonal cartouche border of the present rug is one that is more commonly associated with the column prayer rugs, an example of which is in the Black Church in Braşov, see 'Transylvanian Turkish Rugs', Museum of Applied Arts, Budapest, 2020, pp.228-229, no.206. A "Transylvanian" prayer rug with the same hexagonal cartouche border and diagonally-striped guard stripes as the present rug but with a plain sandy-yellow field, is in the Hungarian Lutheran Church in Braşov, (Stefano Ionoescu, Antique Ottoman Rugs in Transylvania, Rome, 2005, cat. no,168). Both that rug and the present lot display a small hanging floral pendant in the apex of the arch which recall the hanging mosque lamps used within the churches. Most examples from this group display the more common pale fields, and not the present madder-red field, comparable to The Rothschild-Carlowitz prayer rug, of leaf and blossom border, see HALI, Issue 39, p.43 and George Butterweck, et. al., Antike Anatolische Teppich, Vienna, 1983, pl.9, pp.68-69.