EAST CAUCASUS, MID 18TH CENTURY

The 'Afshan' design which comprises large flowerheads, split-palmettes and a myriad of small flowerheads, amulets and other minor motifs, set within a delicate, lozenge lattice, proved to be one of the most successful in eighteenth century Caucasian carpets, (Charles Grant Ellis, Early Caucasian Rugs, Washington D.C., 1976, pp.84-89). Şerare Yetkin discusses a group of seventeen carpets bearing this same design, four on a red ground, thirteen on blue, of which sixteen are now in the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art, Istanbul. Yetkin notes another carpet in the museum, formerly in the library of Omer Klose at Erzerum, that displays a variant of the 'Afshan' design with the inclusion of rows of hooked octagons. A colourful 18th century Sauj Bulaq kelleh of the same design, displaying a red and yellow reciprocal skittle-pattern border between narrow red guard stripes with small rosettes, is in the James D. Burns Collection, Seattle (HALI, Issue 186, p.82, fig.10). A comparable but slightly narrower kelleh, displaying the 'Afshan' design on a blue ground, with the same striking yellow and blue reciprocal skittle-pattern border as the present lot, sold in these Rooms, 27 October 2022, lot 179.