PROBABLY KARAPINAR, 18TH CENTURY

This striking eighteenth century Anatolian village rug, one of only five recorded, has appeared at auction only once before, when it was sold by the great grandson of the renowned carpet collector and entrepreneur, James F. Ballard (1851-1931), a great provenance indeed. Considered, still today, as one of the most significant carpet collections ever formed, it largely comprised rare and impressive examples of mostly Anatolian village rugs woven between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. Ballard was celebrated for his approach to collecting Anatolian carpets from provincial centers in Turkey at a time when most other rug connoisseurs were acquiring classical Persian and Indian carpets. In 1922 he generously donated the majority of his collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and a further significant portion to the City Art Museum in Saint Louis in 1929. Interestingly, those pieces donated to the Metropolitan comprise approximately one fourth of the museum’s carpet collection today.

The present rug, which Ballard retained in his personal collection and which passed down by descent, is a perfect illustration of the quality and rarity of the pieces in the collection and is one of an elusive group of just four others. These include; one which is perhaps the closest to the present rug, published by U. Schürmann, Bilderbuch für Teppichsammler, Munich,1960, pl.7 and Eberhart Herrmann, Seltene Orientteppiche vol. X, 1988, no.17); one sold in Skinner’s Boston, 16 December 1986, lot 102; the third, now in the Zaleski Collection, was sold at Debureaux Aponem, Paris, 19 May, 2010, lot 113; and a fragmented version was with Galerie Sailer, Salzburg, but with different minor ornaments and border, possibly suggesting another date or origin (HALI, Issue 38, p 23).

All five examples are superbly coloured and have a section of golden yellow ogival repeat with a matching central medallion. Although woven in different regions, there are two rugs which incorporate the same unusual linked yellow strap-work with red hooked vine that enclose a central medallion. The first was woven in the Konya region and sold Rippon Boswell, 17 May 2003, lot 71, the second was an impressive Ottoman fragment that sold in these Rooms, 4 October 2011, lot 50. The blue-ground main borders of all but the Sailer piece have a vestigial meander of alternating plump 'S' forms and hooked leaf or bird motifs, and all five are finished with decorative lappet end borders. The absence of any contouring lines surrounding the rectilinear ornaments and the centralised medallion compositions suggest a possible link to earlier Ottoman tent kilims, examples of which were found in the Ulu Mosque, Divrigi, now in the Vakiflar Carpet Museum, Istanbul (B.Belpinar and U.Hirsch, Flatweaves of the Vakiflar Museum Istanbul, Wesel, 1982, pls. 112 and 113).