PROBABLY SELENDI, WEST ANATOLIA, LATE 16TH / EARLY 17TH CENTURY

The 'bird' rugs are so called from the angular motifs which form a lattice within the field but which in reality are more likely to derive from floral or arabesque motifs. Iznik tiles from the mosque of Rustem Pasha of 1559 are noted by Ferenc Batari as showing a similar development of the design from a cintamani original ('White ground Carpets in Budapest', in R. Pinner and W. Denny, (ed.): Oriental Carpet and Textile Studies, II, Carpets of the Mediterranean Countries 1400-1600, London, 1986, pp.197-199). In his discussion of the large 'bird' carpet in the Ufizzi, Carlo Suriano notes however that the earliest painting of a 'bird' rug, showing the fully developed design with a part-medallion border, is dated to 1557 (Portrait, by Hans Mielich, about 1557, Collection of Mrs Rush H. Kress, New York, reproduced in M.S Dimand and J Mailey, Oriental Rugs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York, 1983, p.192). This shows the two to be contemporaneous at the least, assuming that the rug was new when depicted (Carlo Maria Suriano, 'Patterns of Patronage, Classical carpets in the Bargello Museum, Florence', HALI 83, October/November 1995, pp.84-86). A further 16th century depiction, again with this border, is seen in Portrait of a Man, attributed to François Clouet or Corneille de Lyon, c.1560-70. (Museo Lazaro Galdiano, Madrid; see K. Erdmann, Seven Hundred Years of Oriental Carpets, Faber and Faber, London, 1970, p. 22, fig. 10;Jon Thompson & Moshe Tabibnia, Milestones in the History of Carpets, Milan, 2006, p. 242).

While small format 'bird' rugs are relatively common, appearing on the market with fair frequency, such as the example formerly in the Paul Deeg Collection sold in these Rooms, 31 March 2022, lot 196, very few have survived on the scale of the present rug. All either have a white cloudband border or the part medallion border seen here (which is also the border just discernable in the 1557 painting mentioned above). Other rugs with three to four repeats across the width of the field are in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Charles Grant Ellis, Oriental Rugs in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, 1988, no.16, pp.48-50; two in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Dimand and Mailey, op. cit., figs 172 and 173, p.191), one formerly in the Toms Collection (Sotheby's, London, 7 June 1995, lot 137), and one in Vienna (A. Volker, 'Berlegungen zur Neuaufstellung der Orientteppichsammlung des sterreichischen Museums fr angewandte Kunst in Wien', HALI, Vol.II, no.1, Spring 1979, fig.4, p.14). An extraordinary three examples were in the Paulette Goddard Remarque sale (Sotheby's London 18 November 1976, lots 9, 12 and 22). Even larger examples with between four and five repeats are in the Uffizi, Florence (Suriano, op. cit., pl.6); the Turk ve Islam Museum, Istanbul (N. Oler, (intro. by): Turkish Carpets from the 13th-18th Centuries, Istanbul, 1996, pl.113, p.155) and the Zander-Cassirer carpet in a private collection, (Stadt-Museum, Munich, Ausstellung München 1910. Ausstellung von Meisterwerken Muhammedanischer Kunst; Amtlicher Katalog, exhibition catalogue, Munich, 1910, p.32, no.146).