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Lot Essay
The knot count measures approximately 8V x 8H per cm. sq.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it grew increasingly fashionable in Iran to commission Kirman carpets with designs taken from European sources. The design of our carpet derives from a painting entitled, 'Fêtes Vénitiennes' (1718-1719) by the renowned French artist, Antoine Watteau, now in the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh (NG 439). Watteau is credited with revitalising the waning Baroque style and encouraged a more naturalistic, less formal, Rococo style. His paintings celebrated the fête champêtre, a series of pastoral gatherings depicting romantic landscapes dotted with elegant figures in various stages of courtship, musicians and entertainers.
Our carpet is one of three surviving examples based on the painting, ‘Fêtes Vénitiennes,’ two of which were commissioned by affluent governors of Kirman province. The earliest is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (T.128-1928), commissioned by Farmanfarman Abdul Husain Mirza, (gov. 1891-6) from the workshop of Ustad Ali Kirmani and dated 1909. The Qajar Prince probably owned an engraving of the painting (Cecil Edwards, The Persian Carpet, London, 1953, p.201). Another was commissioned by Sardar Assad Bakhtiyari and woven most likely before the end of his Governorship in 1921 (sold at Sotheby’s, London, 24 April 1991, lot 205).
Of the three, ours is the only one not in reverse of the Watteau model, its drawing being closer to the Victoria and Albert Museum carpet. Additionally, the roundel portraits of European women in the border are closer in style to roundels in an earlier carpet signed by Kirmani, recently sold in these Rooms (30 April 2026, lot 182). An attribution to Kirmani’s leading workshop around 1910 is thus likely. Even more remarkable, our carpet is nearly twice the size of the Victoria and Albert Museum carpet, speaking not only to its technical feat, but also the elevated status of its anonymous patron.
European themes were introduced in the late-Safavid period and throughout the 18th century, and one of the distinctive features of the preceding century of Qajar art was its rich iconographic tradition, wherein pastoral landscapes and buildings were mainly inspired by European newspapers, books, postcards, and paintings (Jennifer M. Scarce, ‘Art in Iran, x.1 Art and Architecture of the Qajar Period’ and Annette Ittig, ‘Carpets xi. Qajar Period,’ Encyclopaedia Iranica, Online). And while some credited Farmanfarma with introducing Western pictorial themes to the Kirman workshops (see, e.g., Percy Sykes, 10,000 Miles in Persia, London, 1902, p.99), these became notable from the 1870s onwards as part of a wider artistic contemporary fashion, running parallel with the native imagery from classical Persian literature (Annette Ittig, ‘Carpets xi. Qajar Period,’ Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. IV, Fasc. 8, pp. 877-83; compare with lot 214 of this sale).
While the romantic fore and middle ground loyally follow Watteau’s painting, the secondary figures are slightly rearranged to create a more harmonious, symmetrical composition. Interestingly, cultural adaptations were made to a new Iranian audience, most noticeably the exclusion of the statue of a nude woman. Other Iranicizing elements include the dome and minaret at the right and a badgir (wind tower) in the left background. And while the buildings and pavilion are Italianate in style, they likely reflect idealised versions of Qajar Rococo pleasure gardens commissioned by Governor Farmanfarma in Kirman during the 1890s, such as the Shahzadeh Garden at Mahan (as noted in HALI, Issue 65, p.94). Conversely, while Watteau orientalised the principal male figure, possibly based on his drawings of Persian diplomats at Versaille (see A Member of the Persian Embassy, 1715, Thaw Collection, The Morgan Library & Museum, 2000.54), the Kirman workshop occidentalised him by replacing his turban with a hat.
As remarked by Anette Ittig regarding Victoria and Albert Museum carpet, while we are used to seeing carpets in paintings, we are less accustomed to see paintings in carpets (‘Qajar Rococo,’ HALI, Issue 27, p.35). Our carpet, previously unpublished and unknown, adds to this remarkable group of cultural hybrids produced by the flourishing and experimental workshops of late Qajar Kirman (Ittig, ‘The Kirmani Boom—A Study in Carpet Entrepreneurship’, Walter Denny and Robert Pinner, eds., Oriental Carpet & Textile Studies, Vol.1, London, 1985, pp.111-23).
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it grew increasingly fashionable in Iran to commission Kirman carpets with designs taken from European sources. The design of our carpet derives from a painting entitled, 'Fêtes Vénitiennes' (1718-1719) by the renowned French artist, Antoine Watteau, now in the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh (NG 439). Watteau is credited with revitalising the waning Baroque style and encouraged a more naturalistic, less formal, Rococo style. His paintings celebrated the fête champêtre, a series of pastoral gatherings depicting romantic landscapes dotted with elegant figures in various stages of courtship, musicians and entertainers.
Our carpet is one of three surviving examples based on the painting, ‘Fêtes Vénitiennes,’ two of which were commissioned by affluent governors of Kirman province. The earliest is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (T.128-1928), commissioned by Farmanfarman Abdul Husain Mirza, (gov. 1891-6) from the workshop of Ustad Ali Kirmani and dated 1909. The Qajar Prince probably owned an engraving of the painting (Cecil Edwards, The Persian Carpet, London, 1953, p.201). Another was commissioned by Sardar Assad Bakhtiyari and woven most likely before the end of his Governorship in 1921 (sold at Sotheby’s, London, 24 April 1991, lot 205).
Of the three, ours is the only one not in reverse of the Watteau model, its drawing being closer to the Victoria and Albert Museum carpet. Additionally, the roundel portraits of European women in the border are closer in style to roundels in an earlier carpet signed by Kirmani, recently sold in these Rooms (30 April 2026, lot 182). An attribution to Kirmani’s leading workshop around 1910 is thus likely. Even more remarkable, our carpet is nearly twice the size of the Victoria and Albert Museum carpet, speaking not only to its technical feat, but also the elevated status of its anonymous patron.
European themes were introduced in the late-Safavid period and throughout the 18th century, and one of the distinctive features of the preceding century of Qajar art was its rich iconographic tradition, wherein pastoral landscapes and buildings were mainly inspired by European newspapers, books, postcards, and paintings (Jennifer M. Scarce, ‘Art in Iran, x.1 Art and Architecture of the Qajar Period’ and Annette Ittig, ‘Carpets xi. Qajar Period,’ Encyclopaedia Iranica, Online). And while some credited Farmanfarma with introducing Western pictorial themes to the Kirman workshops (see, e.g., Percy Sykes, 10,000 Miles in Persia, London, 1902, p.99), these became notable from the 1870s onwards as part of a wider artistic contemporary fashion, running parallel with the native imagery from classical Persian literature (Annette Ittig, ‘Carpets xi. Qajar Period,’ Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. IV, Fasc. 8, pp. 877-83; compare with lot 214 of this sale).
While the romantic fore and middle ground loyally follow Watteau’s painting, the secondary figures are slightly rearranged to create a more harmonious, symmetrical composition. Interestingly, cultural adaptations were made to a new Iranian audience, most noticeably the exclusion of the statue of a nude woman. Other Iranicizing elements include the dome and minaret at the right and a badgir (wind tower) in the left background. And while the buildings and pavilion are Italianate in style, they likely reflect idealised versions of Qajar Rococo pleasure gardens commissioned by Governor Farmanfarma in Kirman during the 1890s, such as the Shahzadeh Garden at Mahan (as noted in HALI, Issue 65, p.94). Conversely, while Watteau orientalised the principal male figure, possibly based on his drawings of Persian diplomats at Versaille (see A Member of the Persian Embassy, 1715, Thaw Collection, The Morgan Library & Museum, 2000.54), the Kirman workshop occidentalised him by replacing his turban with a hat.
As remarked by Anette Ittig regarding Victoria and Albert Museum carpet, while we are used to seeing carpets in paintings, we are less accustomed to see paintings in carpets (‘Qajar Rococo,’ HALI, Issue 27, p.35). Our carpet, previously unpublished and unknown, adds to this remarkable group of cultural hybrids produced by the flourishing and experimental workshops of late Qajar Kirman (Ittig, ‘The Kirmani Boom—A Study in Carpet Entrepreneurship’, Walter Denny and Robert Pinner, eds., Oriental Carpet & Textile Studies, Vol.1, London, 1985, pp.111-23).