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拍品專文
The knot count measures approximately 7V x 8H knots per cm.sq.
Inscribed with Persian poetic couplets, repeated:
“Welcome! For your arrival is pleasing to me,
A thousand precious lives are the sacrifice for each step of yours.”
“The portico of my eye is your nest,
Be generous and alight, for this is your dwelling”
A benediction, repeated:
mubarak bad
‘May [this carpet] be blessed’
The city of Heriz is one of the most renowned weaving centers in Persia. Located close to Tabriz it was a major commercial center during the 19th century and became one of the leading carpet producing cities for both the domestic and western markets. Among the rarest and most spectacular of all Qajar weavings produced there were the large silk carpets. Woven as specific commissions, they were one of the most explicit ways of displaying wealth and status and were often gifted at Nowruz to celebrate the start of the new year.
The Charbagh or 'Four Garden' design seen here, is one of the most desirable patterns in decorative Persian carpets and is evocative of ancient Persia and its love of nature. The word 'paradise' itself comes from the old Iranian, pairidaezai meaning "enclosed garden". Here we are presented with paradise at the height of spring, with fruit trees in full bloom. It is organized as a stately, double four-part garden, an ancient form combining gardens divided into four quarters by longitudinal and latitudinal streams of water, always a precious commodity in the arid Persian climate. The present carpet no longer displays channels filled with rivulets of water but have been replaced with cartouches of elegant calligraphic Persian prose and two large radiating sunburst medallions that have replaced the centralised pools into which the water flowed.
The 'Four Garden' design is one of a significant number of seventeenth century cartoons created in south east Persia which travelled to the north west of the country in the eighteenth century. The earliest surviving 17th century carpets of this design are few in number. Some use variations on the simple four-part structure, such as the Jaipur Chahar Bagh carpet from the early 17th century (now in the Central Museum, Jaipur, and illustrated in HALI, Vol 5, No.1, p.14, pl.5) with a central ornamental lake enclosing a pleasure pavilion and two supporting aquatic reserves. Both Kurt Erdmann (Seven Hundred Years of Oriental Carpets, London, 1970, pp.66-70) and Christine Klose ('Betrachtungen zu nordwestpersischen Gartenteppichen des 18. Jahrhunderts', HALI, vol.1, no.2, (1978), p.114) discuss the development of the group. The present example, finely woven in silk, faithfully continues the classic tradition.
The border design of green cypress trees that alternate with floral sprays and flowering shrubs, is found on a small number of 'vase' carpets, more frequently displaying a flowering three-plane lattice field (Benguiat sale, American Art Association, New York, 19-22 November 1922, lot 735; Christine Klose, 'Betrachtungen zu nordwestpersischen Gartenteppichen des 18. Jahrhunderts' HALI, volume 1, no. 2, Summer 1978, pl. 8, p. 118) and those with single plane designs, (May Beattie, Carpets of Central Persia with special reference to Rugs of Kirman, Sheffield and Birmingham exhibition catalogue, Westerham, 1976, no. 56, pp. 80-81; and Christie's London, 15 October 1998, lot 317). Its form, as May Beattie points out, derives from an abstraction of an early 'vase' carpet field design element (Beattie, op.cit., no.14, p.49). A near identical border fragment is published, together with a number of other Safavid south Persian carpet borders, in F. R. Martin, A History of Oriental Carpets Before 1800, Vienna, 1908, pl.XX. This same border can also be seen later on a small group of south Persian weavings which use a different technique but take their field and border designs from 'vase' carpets (Werner Grote-Hasenbalg, Der Orientteppich, seine Geschichte und seine Kultur, Berlin, 1922, vol. III, pl. 62; also one sold in these Rooms 21 October 1993, lot 519).
The quality of the lustrous silk of the present carpet, together with the clarity of the natural dyes that have remained so richly saturated, are testament to the quality of workmanship in the weaving atelier of Heriz during the second half of the nineteenth century. The design, with its suggestion of a lush garden interspersed with poetic verses encouraging joy and merriment but also contemplation, would no doubt have had the desired effect upon the beholder. A comparable silk Heriz carpet of 'Garden' design, decorated with a series of calligraphic cartouches and dated AH 1285 / 1868 AD, sold in these Rooms, 3 May 2001, lot 50.
Inscribed with Persian poetic couplets, repeated:
“Welcome! For your arrival is pleasing to me,
A thousand precious lives are the sacrifice for each step of yours.”
“The portico of my eye is your nest,
Be generous and alight, for this is your dwelling”
A benediction, repeated:
mubarak bad
‘May [this carpet] be blessed’
The city of Heriz is one of the most renowned weaving centers in Persia. Located close to Tabriz it was a major commercial center during the 19th century and became one of the leading carpet producing cities for both the domestic and western markets. Among the rarest and most spectacular of all Qajar weavings produced there were the large silk carpets. Woven as specific commissions, they were one of the most explicit ways of displaying wealth and status and were often gifted at Nowruz to celebrate the start of the new year.
The Charbagh or 'Four Garden' design seen here, is one of the most desirable patterns in decorative Persian carpets and is evocative of ancient Persia and its love of nature. The word 'paradise' itself comes from the old Iranian, pairidaezai meaning "enclosed garden". Here we are presented with paradise at the height of spring, with fruit trees in full bloom. It is organized as a stately, double four-part garden, an ancient form combining gardens divided into four quarters by longitudinal and latitudinal streams of water, always a precious commodity in the arid Persian climate. The present carpet no longer displays channels filled with rivulets of water but have been replaced with cartouches of elegant calligraphic Persian prose and two large radiating sunburst medallions that have replaced the centralised pools into which the water flowed.
The 'Four Garden' design is one of a significant number of seventeenth century cartoons created in south east Persia which travelled to the north west of the country in the eighteenth century. The earliest surviving 17th century carpets of this design are few in number. Some use variations on the simple four-part structure, such as the Jaipur Chahar Bagh carpet from the early 17th century (now in the Central Museum, Jaipur, and illustrated in HALI, Vol 5, No.1, p.14, pl.5) with a central ornamental lake enclosing a pleasure pavilion and two supporting aquatic reserves. Both Kurt Erdmann (Seven Hundred Years of Oriental Carpets, London, 1970, pp.66-70) and Christine Klose ('Betrachtungen zu nordwestpersischen Gartenteppichen des 18. Jahrhunderts', HALI, vol.1, no.2, (1978), p.114) discuss the development of the group. The present example, finely woven in silk, faithfully continues the classic tradition.
The border design of green cypress trees that alternate with floral sprays and flowering shrubs, is found on a small number of 'vase' carpets, more frequently displaying a flowering three-plane lattice field (Benguiat sale, American Art Association, New York, 19-22 November 1922, lot 735; Christine Klose, 'Betrachtungen zu nordwestpersischen Gartenteppichen des 18. Jahrhunderts' HALI, volume 1, no. 2, Summer 1978, pl. 8, p. 118) and those with single plane designs, (May Beattie, Carpets of Central Persia with special reference to Rugs of Kirman, Sheffield and Birmingham exhibition catalogue, Westerham, 1976, no. 56, pp. 80-81; and Christie's London, 15 October 1998, lot 317). Its form, as May Beattie points out, derives from an abstraction of an early 'vase' carpet field design element (Beattie, op.cit., no.14, p.49). A near identical border fragment is published, together with a number of other Safavid south Persian carpet borders, in F. R. Martin, A History of Oriental Carpets Before 1800, Vienna, 1908, pl.XX. This same border can also be seen later on a small group of south Persian weavings which use a different technique but take their field and border designs from 'vase' carpets (Werner Grote-Hasenbalg, Der Orientteppich, seine Geschichte und seine Kultur, Berlin, 1922, vol. III, pl. 62; also one sold in these Rooms 21 October 1993, lot 519).
The quality of the lustrous silk of the present carpet, together with the clarity of the natural dyes that have remained so richly saturated, are testament to the quality of workmanship in the weaving atelier of Heriz during the second half of the nineteenth century. The design, with its suggestion of a lush garden interspersed with poetic verses encouraging joy and merriment but also contemplation, would no doubt have had the desired effect upon the beholder. A comparable silk Heriz carpet of 'Garden' design, decorated with a series of calligraphic cartouches and dated AH 1285 / 1868 AD, sold in these Rooms, 3 May 2001, lot 50.