PROBABLY USHAK, WEST ANATOLIA, EARLY 16TH CENTURY

The 'Box' or 'Four Arrows' border seen here, is usually associated with early 'Lotto' rugs from the sixteenth century. Although in most other examples the kufesque border is more visually related to script, the 'box' border is found in a small number of 'Lotto' rugs, and occasional other Turkish rugs of the same period. This border appears in only two paintings, one dateable to the mid-16th century, the other to circa 1590 (John Mills, "Carpets in Paintings, The 'Bellini', 'Keyhole' or 'Re-entrant' Rugs", HALI 58, August 1991, appendix, p.127; for an illustration of the second of these two, 'The Chess Players', by Ludovico Carracci see John Mills, "'Lotto' Carpets in Western Paintings," HALI, Vol. 3, no. 4, pp.278-289, fig. 20).

A relatively small number of 'Lotto' rugs or fragments are known with the same combination of 'Kilim' field and 'Box' border as the present rug. These include an extremely fragmentary example in the Turk ve Islam Museum, Istanbul (S. Yetkin, Historical Turkish Carpets, Istanbul, 1981, pl.32); a small fragment in the Victoria and Albert museum, London, (acc. no.156-1908); a rug of simplified design in the Black Church, Braşov, (Inv. no: 159); a fragment with a blue-ground border in the Evangelical Church of Biertan, Romania; a rug in the Bayerisches National Museum, München; one in the Eskenazi Collection, (HALI Issue 33, p.7); and two examples sold in these Rooms; The Bernheimer Family Collection of Carpets, Christie's, London, 14 February 1996, lot, 90, and 10 October 2008, lot 35.