SIGNED ZAREH PENYAMIN, ISTANBUL, TURKEY, CIRCA 1920

The knot count measures approximately 12V x 12H knots per cm. sq.

While the Sultan's Head on the last lot bore a scalloped profile, on this example the ogee niche is formed of a concave and convex curve that create an S-shape which come to a pointed apex. Both share a similar palette and fineness, and areas of silk flatweave in the metal-thread details: all typical features of the weaving of Zareh Penyamin. The design of this rug can be linked to a cartoon in the Arkas Collection which was acquired from Penyamin’s widow, Armin (Kumkapi rugs from the Arkas Collection, Izmir, 2017, p.56).

Farrow believed this rug to be unsigned however, a recent inspection has revealed the signature of Zareh woven into the metal-thread in the central palmette. Zareh adopted a square-kufic signature as his trademark, rendering his first name in Arabic script. This indicates his debt to the imperial workshop at Hereke, which also used a square-kufic signature on carpets, as seen on a large silk carpet, lot 189 in the Farrow Collection. Pamela Bensoussan publishes a group of cartoons for a 'Sultan's head' prayer rug, which were acquired from the widow of Zareh Penyamin (“The Masterweavers of Istanbul”, HALI 26, 1985, p.38). Interestingly, on those cartoons the square-kufic signature in the metal-thread central cartouche, do not spell Zareh's name but another word, possibly Awam. The meaning of this signature has proved elusive. Based on the fact that the cartoons were with Armin Penyamin, as well as the similarity of design between the cartoon and the woven rugs such as the present lot, Farrow believed it to be an early signature used by Zareh, possibly while he was still at the Hereke workshop. The signature on this rug, though faint, reads as 'Zareh' rather than 'Awam', making this rug incontrovertibly the work of Penyamin.

The ogee profile of the niche bears a resemblance to the so-called ‘Topkapi’ carpets. Though their exact date and place of manufacture is a source of some disagreement among scholars, they had begun to be published around the turn of the twentieth century in books such as, F. R. Martin’s A History of Oriental Carpets before 1800, Sarre and Trenkwald’s Alt-Orientalische Teppiche, and Arthur Upham Pope’s multi-volume Survey of Persian Art. The advent of colour printing meant that designers like Zareh for the first time could access carpets which had hitherto been hidden in aristocratic and royal treasuries, and study their designs. It is also, of course, possible that Zareh was able to see some of the rugs in the museum of the Topkapi palace, only a stone’s throw from Koum Kapi and opened as a museum by decree of the Turkish government in April 1924.

Beyond the shape of the prayer niche, other similarities between this rug and the Topkapi prayer rugs include the abundance of calligraphy – with the apotropaic ‘Throne Verse’ in the main border cartouches – and the appearance of Chinese-inspired cloudbands in the mihrab niche. Zareh did introduce new elements of his own to the design, including the niches decorated with prayer lamps and birds, which George Farrow identified as hoopoes, and the minor stripe around the edge of the rug which mirrors the shape of the central niche. The incorporation of metal-thread allowed Zareh to add texture to his rugs, making the cloudbands and calligraphy stand in greater relief.

Two slight variants of this rug seem to have been woven by Zareh. The first, more common, group has the field cut off by the lower border just below the lower cloudband inside the niche. Examples of rugs of this type include one published by Pamela Bensoussan (op.cit., p.18) as well as examples sold in these Rooms 16 October 2003, lot 150 and 29 April 13 October 2005, lot 21. The present example, however, continues the design for a few inches below the lower cloudband, and also extends the design sideways. For another example of a rug on this scale, see the examples sold in these Rooms 15 October 1998, lot 289, and another 29 April 2004, lot 76.

When Zareh retired from weaving and left Istanbul for Paris to be treated for Tuberculosis, he left at least two half-finished rugs of this design. The looms were bought and subsequently completed in the 1970s by the original weavers, the young girls from the 1930s who by then had become old women. One of these rugs is now in the Arkas Collection, Turkey (op.cit., Izmir 2017, pp.56-7, no.13), while the other was formerly part of the George Farrow Collection, and the subject of an article published by him (‘Zareh’s Legacy’, HALI 58, 1991, pp.112-14). Based on this, we can assume that these rugs were woven later in Zareh’s career with the benefit of decades of weaving experience behind him.