WEST ANATOLIA, FIRST HALF 16TH CENTURY

The 'small pattern Holbein' design is named after the artist, Hans Holbein the Younger, appearing in his portrait of George Gisze of 1532. The design is conceived as an endless repeat consisting of two main ornaments which are interlocked in a complex fashion. The primary motifs are the octagons with interlaced outlines in the shape of an infinite knot. The second design layer consists of elongated quartered diamonds with arabesque outlines which, in the present fragment, are woven in red or pale blue, depending on their background colour.

The design is one which is part of the international Timurid style. Amy Briggs in her seminal article clearly demonstrated the link between the 'small pattern Holbein' rugs and Timurid Persian arts (A. Briggs, "Timurid Carpets, I: Geometric Carpets", Ars Islamica 7, 1940, pp.20-54). Links at the time between the Ottoman empire and their Timurid (and, in the second half of the century Ak-koyunlu or White Sheep Turkman) neighbours in Iran were strong, albeit interspersed with periods of confrontation. Persian craftsmen for example were imported to create the tilework for the Yesil Cami in Bursa, the then Ottoman capital in the 1420s, and again later in the century at Edirne. Thus it is not surprising that many rugs depicted in Timurid miniatures are very similar to rugs of the 'small pattern Holbein' group. It has also been noted a number of times how the design of these rugs relates very closely to that of Turkman rugs (R. Pinner and M. Franses, 'Turkish Carpets in the Victoria and Albert Museum', Hali 24 (vol.6, no.4), p.363-5 for example).

The dating of a large number of these rugs to the 15th century is supported by evidence from European painting. John Mills shows paintings including rugs of this group dating from between 1451 and 1655, although the greater concentration appears between 1450 and 1550 with only a couple of isolated examples being shown thereafter (J. Mills, 'Small Pattern Holbein Carpets in Western Paintings', HALI, vol.1, no.4, pp.326-334). The border designs have been studied to form a typography by Robert Pinner and Jackie Stanger (''Kufic' borders on 'Small Pattern Holbein' Carpets', HALI, vol.1, no.4, pp.335-338). The present border, with its bars rather than crosses between the kufic elements, while a variant on their type C, is not illustrated. It appears in one other published example, a rug with two columns of four and a half medallions in the Bardini Collection, Florence (M. and V. Viale, Arazzi e Tappeti Antichi, Torino, 1952, no.34, p.229 and pl.152; also A. Boralevi, Oriental Geometries, Stefano Bardini and the Antique Carpet, Livorno, 1999, no.12, pp.50-51.) This rug is included as one of the then exhaustive list of 70 known rugs and fragments of the 'Small pattern Holbein' group by Charles Grant Ellis as no.R-60. Of this list, excluding the numerous pieces, mostly fragmentary, in the Keir Collection, all but 13 are held either in museums or in other institutions or churches.