PROBABLY KARABAGH, LATE 19TH CENTURY

The design stimulus of staggered rows of bold palmettes on the present carpet is taken from the seventeenth and eighteenth century Caucasian ‘Shield’ carpets. The earliest example is widely acknowledged as a carpet in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris whose drawing is far more organic in feel than much of the later weavings (Robert Pinner & Michael Franses, ‘Caucasian Shield Carpets’, HALI, Vol.1 No.1, Spring 1978, no.1, p.6). Other examples include one gifted by James F. Ballard to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in 1922 (acc.22.100.118); one in the Benaki Museum in Athens, No. 510; and another in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, acc. no. T.13-1944, ("Caucasian Rugs in the V & A", by M. Franses and R. Pinner (intro. by Donald King), HALI,1980, Vol. 3, No. 2, p. 96).

The major design features of the group include large vertically aligned palmettes resembling shields that are flanked by serrated leaves set within borders of either curled leaves, reminiscent of Tekke weavings, or linked octagons. The curled leaves found on the earlier carpets have since disappeared on the present carpet and the large 'shield' palmettes have become more tightly packed together. There is no set pattern of colouring in the palmettes which differs from row to row between rust-red, ivory, chestnut-brown, camel and sandy-yellow. The dark charcoal-brown field, which has naturally corroded throwing the design motifs into greater relief, is filled with numerous small amulets, flowers, animals and birds. The eighteenth century ‘Shield’ carpets were woven with silk in the foundation, a tradition that has been continued in the present carpet where small touches of purple silk can be found intermittently in some of the small flowerheads within the design.