SOUTH CAUCASUS, 18TH CENTURY

This carpet belongs to a group of rugs, formerly called 'Kuba' and now generally attributed to Karabagh, produced in the Caucasus while it was under Persian rule. The majority of this group that has survived has been discovered in Turkey, and it is very possible that this, too, was purchased by Otto Bernheimer's brother, Max, on one of his purchasing trips to Istanbul.

In his catalogue of the 1975 Textile Museum Exhibition, Ellis publishes three related pieces, (C.G. Ellis, Early Caucasian Rugs, Washington DC, 1975, nos. 15-17). Each of these has a central column of radiating palmettes and panels flanked by lanceolate leaves. The first two carpets illustrated show the design as a repeat which could extend indefinitely. In what would appear to be a development of this, the present carpet, as with Ellis' no.17, has taken a section of this and expanded it into a static centralised design.

The design of the present carpet with its central radiating 'sunburst' medallion, shares these features with a few other rugs. Erdmann in his catalogue entry notes four, but these contain central medallions of various types, including the 'Gohar' carpet with a cruciform lozenge and the possible date 1700 (Weavers, Merchants and Kings, exhibition catalogue, Fort Worth, 1984, no 3, pp.72-73). Ellis in his final paragraph to the entry under no. 17, notes three similar carpets, two fragments, and two derivative versions, one of which was more recently published (Şerare Yetkin, Early Caucasian Carpets in Turkey, London, 1978, vol.1, pl.35). To this list can be added another, at one time owned by Elio Cittone (Ş. Yetkin, op. cit., vol.2, pl.153, p.34). These share the design of the present carpet, a design which became very popular in the nineteenth century 'Chelaberd' rugs. These however almost all have red grounds, (an exception was sold in these Rooms 26 April 1994, lot 421), in contrast to the blue ground of almost all the eighteenth century examples.