SPAIN, SECOND HALF 15TH CENTURY

Though we can assume that the history of carpet weaving in Spain stretches back to the Roman period and beyond, the earliest known fragments seem to date from the 12^th and 13^th centuries (Sarah B. Sherill, 'Hispanic Bounty', HALI 129, p.66) . A peak in production seems to have come in the 15^th century, stimulated by the demand from Spanish royals and aristocrats whose blazons and coats of arms adorn a number of early pieces. Many of these early pieces took design inspiration from carpets exported from Ottoman Anatolia, particularly the so-called ‘large pattern’ Holbein carpets. The association with the German artist Hans Holbein the Younger (d.1543) comes from the appearance of an Anatolian rug of this type in his famous painting ‘the Ambassadors’, completed in 1533. The appearance of Anatolian rugs in Renaissance paintings indicates the value that was placed on them as luxury items in Europe during the 15th and 16^th centuries.

Our fragment comprises parts of a single carpet assembled to form the appearance of a complete medallion. Given a slight overlap along the central seam and the subtly different colours of the green field, most probably our fragment combines parts of two medallions from the same carpet. Enough of the medallion survives, however, for its place within the corpus of early Spanish 'large medallion' Holbein carpets to be understood. According to Michael Franses, the group consists of at least twenty surviving carpets, all of which have fields organised around large octagons like this. These he breaks down into subgroups according to the shape of the medallion. Ours belongs to the fifth and final group, described by him as having ‘wheel-like medallions’ and attributed to the second half of the 15^th century (Michael Franses, 'A Museum of Masterpieces 2. Iberian and East Mediterranean Carpets in the Museum of Islamic Art, Doha', HALI 157, p.71). The ‘large pattern’ group also displays some variation with regard to the number of medallions and their arrangement – while some have a single row of medallions stacked one on top of the other, some have two or three columns and are broader in shape.

The nine ‘wheel’ carpets may be further subdivided by the shape of the wheel. On at least two examples, the wheel is bordered by ‘ram's-horn’ motifs. This can be seen on an example in the Cleveland Museum of Art with three columns of six medallions (acc.no.1952.511) as well as one in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (acc.no.1943-40-67). The remainder, such as an example with a single column of seven medallions which is now divided between the Museum of Islamic Art, Doha (acc.no.CA24) and the Textile Museum, Washington D.C. (acc.no.R44.2.2), lack those outer motifs. Two further examples have two columns of four medallions, namely those in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (acc.no.53.79) and one in the Saint Louis Art Museum (acc.no.122.1929, formerly in the collection of James Ballard) of which the latter also has angular s-shaped motifs in a yellow border around the medallions, like ours. The most similar fragment to ours is single medallion with the Hispanic Society of America (Notes Hispanic, The Hispanic Society of America, New York, 1945, p.57), upon which – like ours – the octagonal medallion is below spandrels which are at a slightly shallower angle than the sides of the octagon, creating a pleasing visual effect.

Given this variety within the subgroup, it is not possible to estimate how many medallions there would have been on the original carpet. The unbroken tonal variations visible running across the two fragments at the bottom of our piece suggests that it may have only had one column of medallions. The green outer border would have run around the outer edge of the entire carpet, with the blue inner border breaking the surface into square compartments for each octagon. The red design in the blue border is intricate and impressive, with a more intricate design and a greater number of colours in it than the border of the examples in New York, Cleveland, St Louis, or Philadelphia. It more closely resembles the border of the Doha/Washington example. Still more unusual is the red and dark green outer border, which seems to be wider and more intricate than the outer borders on other extant Hispano-Moresque fragments. In addition, from our fragment it can be seen that the medallions on our carpet are among the largest which can be found on any Spanish carpet in the group.

We have some contemporary documentation of ‘large pattern’ Spanish carpets. The inventory of Infanta Beatriz of Portugal (d.1506) taken after her death records ‘four carpets from Castile, large’ of which three were described as having ‘ten wheels’, which we can assume were arranged in two columns of five, which measured between 3 ½ and 5 ½ varas in length, or from 3 to 4 ½ metres (The Oriental Carpet in Portugal, Lisbon, 2007, p.62). They also appear in contemporary paintings. In one, attributed to the ‘Master of the Visitation’, circa 1495-1500, Saint George stands on a carpet of which three medallions are visible (Art Institute of Chicago, published Sarah Sherrill, Carpets and Rugs of Europe and America, New York, 1995, p.37, pl.30). A slightly later painting shows the apostles on Pentecost, who kneel on a carpet with at least two columns of four medallions (Ermida de Nossa Senhora dos Remedios, Lisbon, published The Oriental Carpet in Portugal, Lisbon, 2007, p.62). Given this, it is possible to be confident in attributing the group to the 15th century.