A LONG KHORASAN 'COMPARTMENT AND TREE' CARPET

The 'compartment and tree' design is probably the most instantly recognisable of all designs created in seventeenth century Khorasan carpets. Yet only six complete examples have survived. That in the Keir Collection is probably the best drawn and may well be the earliest; it is however not typical of the group, due to its colouring and border design (Friedrich Spuhler, Islamic Carpets and Textiles in the Keir Collection, London, 1978, no.56, pp.111-112, ill.p.104). There are also ten incomplete examples, nine of which have been published. Four of these complete or partial carpets share with this one the arabesque and palmette border. For a complete listing please see the very useful note by Michael Franses in his catalogue of the present carpet (Orient Stars, note 146, p.360). Franses' discussion centres on the Khorasani rather than the North West Persian attribution of the group.

In his discussion of the two fragmentary examples in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Charles Grant Ellis divides the group into two parts, those with three and those with two complete panels across the width (Oriental Carpets, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia 1988, nos.51 and 52, pp.179-187). The two variants give a very different visual effect; those like the present example with only two panels are not symmetrical across the vertical axis and thus by definition have a much greater counterpoint between the elements. In this carpet the effect is enhanced by its horizontal symmetry, the blue panels appearing to move in one direction, passing through the yellow ones arranged in the other. This is further enhanced in the present example by the strong colouring that is typical in Safavid Khorasani weavings but is frequently lacking as so many are worn flat.

The final paragraph of Michael Franses' discussion of this carpet sums up the carpets' aesthetic appeal very well: "As we have said earlier, the Barbeiri is the only complete red ground Khorasan 'tree' carpet, and one of only three to have survived in any condition. It is also one of only three examples of what we might call the 'early' group of 'tree' carpets to have survived intact, and one of the most beautiful. It has a remarkable grandeur which comes not only from its brilliant colouring but also from what seems to be a conscious attempt to create a perspectival design".