SIGNED HAGOP KAPOUDJIAN, ISTANBUL, TURKEY, CIRCA 1900

The knot count measures approximately 8V x 8H knots per cm. sq.

This rug has in it many of the hallmarks of Hagop’s later career, indicative of his growing confidence as a designer. For a start, it is repeatedly and emphatically signed with his initials, leaving no doubt about who was behind the design. It also marks something of a departure from earlier work in that this rug has a less obvious prototype among classical carpets published in the late 19th century.

The design is primarily Safavid in feel. Perhaps the nearest classical counterpart is an early Persian carpet in the Museum fur Islamiche Kunst in Berlin (acc.no. I.1534, published Volkmar Gantzhorn, Oriental Carpets, Cologne, 1998, p.381, no.516). Part of the 'Safavid medallion' group woven in North West Persia in the 15th and 16th centuries, its blue field is decorated with a lattice of bulbous flowerheads and split palmettes, within a border of alternating cartouches and octagonal flowerheads. However, Hagop may also have drawn inspiration from a Mughal example which had also been based on a Safavid original. A carpet in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has a similar lattice design, upon which the Safavid split-palmettes have metamorphosed into saz leaves, within a cartouche border. Like ours, that example has cloudbands in the border around the cartouches. Both classical carpets are published in Sarre and Trenkwald’s Altorientische Teppiche, Vienna, 1926, pl.11 and 56.

Though the overall scheme finds its origin in these carpets, Hagop does not shy away from introduced many new elements to the design. The split-palmettes from the Berlin carpet appear here, but against a deep purple field which can be found on neither. The relationship between border motifs has also been changed: the long cartouches have become the main element, while the lobed palmettes of the Metropolitan Museum’s carpet have morphed into smaller quatrefoil motifs. A final innovative touch is the addition of small panels with realistically-drawn songbirds in between the two.

A hand drawn cartoon for the border of a very similar rug is offered as lot 181 in the present sale.