WEST PERSIA, EARLY 19TH CENTURY

Designs of individual floral sprays or shrubs, more commonly set within a geometric lattice, can be traced back to the sixteenth and seventeenth century court carpets of the Safavid Persian and Mughal Indian empires. Freed here from the constraints of a lattice, the alternating rows of off-set, ascending red and blue flowers, set on an ivory ground are found in late 18th century Kurdish weavings, including a yellow ground rug of the same design and balanced scale of drawing, all set within a deep indigo border, (James. D. Burns, Antique Rugs of Kurdistan, UK, 2002, pp.114-5, pl.28). In the same work, Burns includes a further Senneh prayer rug with an identical border design and another mid-blue ground rug with the same border and a variant of the field design, woven on an all wool foundation, attributed to Garrus, eastern Kurdistan, (Burns, op.cit. pl.29 and pl.36).

The present border design of openly spaced floral meander was not used exclusively in the west of Persia, as a variant of the design can be found on a small group of finely woven, eighteenth century, south Persian rugs which include the McMullan Prayer Rug, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, (J. V. McMullan, Islamic Carpets, pp.134-5, pl.30).

A closely related 18th century fragmentary example, attributed to Joshagan, was exhibited in Toronto, 'Oriental Rugs from Canadian Collections II', September. 1998, as part of the Andrew Vodstreil Collection, Montreal, (Hali, Issue 102, 1999, p.88, fig.1), and a pair of near identical runners to the present lot, were offered in Sotheby's, 5 April 2006, lot 46. An ivory ground Senneh prayer rug with the same ascending rows of flowers in the field, woven at the turn of the 19th century, is published by Eberhart Herrmann, Von Uschak Bis Yarkand, Munich, 1982,pl.56.