WEST TURKEY, CIRCA 1920

The knot count measures approximately 9V x 10H knots per cm. sq.

From 1864, the Hereke workshop was the official manufacturer of pile carpets for the Ottoman sultans. It was used to furnish the Dolmabahçe and Yildiz palaces, as well as for specific commissions like the construction of a pavilion for the visit of Kaiser Wilhelm I to Turkey in 1898. For such palatial commissions the Hereke looms were able to produce truly monumental carpets: surviving examples in the Dolmabahçe measure up to twenty metres in length. Many also bear a signature in Arabic letters in one corner, though May Beattie suggests that this came to a stop in 1928 when the Turkish government introduced the Latin script ("Hereke", HALI 4, 2, p.132).