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拍品專文
The knot count measures approximately 9V x 8H knots per cm. sq.
As characteristic of Zareh's work as the 'sultan's head' design, 'Shah Abbas' design carpets like this were extensively signed by Zareh Penyamin. Like the 'sultan's head' rug, they looked to the seventeenth century for inspiration: in this case, to the Isfahan carpets which decorated Safavid palaces during the reigns of Shah Abbas I (r.1587-1629) and his successors. While Isfahan carpets were large in scale and bold in their design, the 'Shah Abbas' group of Koum Kapi rugs was woven with the intricate designs and fine knotting which one would expect from the school. A complete Safavid Isfahan carpet, together with a small group of fragments, are also being offered as part of the George Farrow collection in this sale, lots 241-43.
Like the 'sultan's head' group, there is no single prototype which Zareh copied for this design: rather, it took features from the 'Isfahan' group as a whole. Within that group, the particularly intricate design on this rug looks to examples such as the 'Emperor's Carpet' which was published on plate 7 in the second volume of Sarre and Trenkwald's Alt-Orientalische Teppiche, and which is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (acc.no.43.121.1). Still closer is an example which was with Dikran Kelikian when it was published by Arthur Upham Pope in his Survey of Persian Art, London, 1939, pl.1186. Like the 'Shah Abbas' rugs of Zareh Penyamin, this late 16th century example has paired birds but no combat groups, a similar arrangement of large flowerheads, and chinese-inspired cloudbands in the field.
The border which Zareh chose for these rugs, however, is unlike that on the Kelekian or the Emperor's carpet. Instead, the arrangement of large palmettes interspersed with paired songbirds between floral guardstripes, of which the outer stripe is red, and the inner one ivory, evokes the border of the so-called Sangiorgi carpet. This is also published in Pope, 1939, pl.1179, though both it and the Kelikian carpet may have appeared in an earlier publication in which Zareh could have studied it. Another possibility is that Zareh, like his contemporary Hagop, may have found work as a carpet restorer and gained first-hand experience of one or both of these Safavid carpets.
Other examples of 'Shah Abbas' Koum Kapi rugs are known, almost all of which are - like the present example - signed, often in numerous places. Often they were much smaller in size, as with the example sold in these Rooms, 27 October 2022, lot 239. A 'Shah Abbas' rug of similar size was sold in these Rooms, 24 April 2012, lot 19.
As characteristic of Zareh's work as the 'sultan's head' design, 'Shah Abbas' design carpets like this were extensively signed by Zareh Penyamin. Like the 'sultan's head' rug, they looked to the seventeenth century for inspiration: in this case, to the Isfahan carpets which decorated Safavid palaces during the reigns of Shah Abbas I (r.1587-1629) and his successors. While Isfahan carpets were large in scale and bold in their design, the 'Shah Abbas' group of Koum Kapi rugs was woven with the intricate designs and fine knotting which one would expect from the school. A complete Safavid Isfahan carpet, together with a small group of fragments, are also being offered as part of the George Farrow collection in this sale, lots 241-43.
Like the 'sultan's head' group, there is no single prototype which Zareh copied for this design: rather, it took features from the 'Isfahan' group as a whole. Within that group, the particularly intricate design on this rug looks to examples such as the 'Emperor's Carpet' which was published on plate 7 in the second volume of Sarre and Trenkwald's Alt-Orientalische Teppiche, and which is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (acc.no.43.121.1). Still closer is an example which was with Dikran Kelikian when it was published by Arthur Upham Pope in his Survey of Persian Art, London, 1939, pl.1186. Like the 'Shah Abbas' rugs of Zareh Penyamin, this late 16th century example has paired birds but no combat groups, a similar arrangement of large flowerheads, and chinese-inspired cloudbands in the field.
The border which Zareh chose for these rugs, however, is unlike that on the Kelekian or the Emperor's carpet. Instead, the arrangement of large palmettes interspersed with paired songbirds between floral guardstripes, of which the outer stripe is red, and the inner one ivory, evokes the border of the so-called Sangiorgi carpet. This is also published in Pope, 1939, pl.1179, though both it and the Kelikian carpet may have appeared in an earlier publication in which Zareh could have studied it. Another possibility is that Zareh, like his contemporary Hagop, may have found work as a carpet restorer and gained first-hand experience of one or both of these Safavid carpets.
Other examples of 'Shah Abbas' Koum Kapi rugs are known, almost all of which are - like the present example - signed, often in numerous places. Often they were much smaller in size, as with the example sold in these Rooms, 27 October 2022, lot 239. A 'Shah Abbas' rug of similar size was sold in these Rooms, 24 April 2012, lot 19.