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Lot Essay
STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS:
(A full structural analysis undertaken by Dr. Steven Cohen, is available online)
Warp: silk, blue, green, red, ivory, U2S, highly depressed
Weft: silk, scarlet x 3
Pile: pashmina, asymmetric knot open to the left
Knots: approximately 11V x 10H per cm.sq.
Sides and Ends: Nonextant
The following lot essay has been written, for the purposes of this catalogue, by Daniel Walker, former Patti Cadby Birch Curator in Charge of the Department of Islamic Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Director of The Textile Museum, Washington, D.C.
The present carpet represents the highest level of production found at the Mughal court in the middle of the 17th century. With knots of pashmina wool, fine goat hair traditionally used to weave shawls in Kashmir and Lahore, and a foundation of silk, the carpet consists of luxury materials. The weave is extremely fine, with an average of 672 knots per square inch. The field pattern involves an elaborate diamond lattice framework of leafy foliage which twists and coils at regular intervals. The lattice forms cartouche-like compartments containing single flowers arranged in a radial formation - lilies (white), sunflowers (yellow), and possibly cockscomb (red, pink, and white) -- shown in silhouette on a deep and brilliant crimson-red ground.[1] The main border design features a pattern of reciprocal vines whose curves embrace clusters of unidentified flower blossoms. These vines, also set against a red ground, incorporate miniature stylised cloud wisps derived from Chinese tradition. The main border is framed by identical minor borders consisting of a reciprocal vine bearing small blossoms and leaves. The fine weave allows for the presentation of minute naturalistic details, especially in the blossoms of the flowers, the lattice, and the vine scroll in the main border. The carpet is now almost square but it has been shortened: originally the length was approximately 4.4 meters. Three smaller fragments in public and private collections are probably survivors of a prior campaign to excise areas of damage.[2]
The Flower Style
The genesis of the flower style in Indian art can be traced to the visit of the Mughal emperor Jahangir (r. 1605-27) to Kashmir in 1620. Not known as an innovator or a territorial expansionist or a religious radical, Jahangir (The World-Seizer) had the wisdom to maintain the tolerant approach and policies of his father Akbar, who had ruled successfully for fifty years. Akbar had been a great patron of the arts and established royal carpet workshops during the last quarter of the 16th century. With the affairs of state well in hand, Jahangir not only continued to support the arts, he was a true collector and a sensitive connoisseur as well. He had a special appreciation for the beautiful and the unusual, such as exotic animals, for example.
Jahangir had been to Kashmir before but not in the Spring, when the flowers were in full bloom, and he recorded his enthusiasm in rich detail in his memoirs:
“Kashmir is a garden of eternal spring, or an iron fort to a palace of kings – A delightful flower-bed, and a heart-expanding heritage for dervishes…. Wherever the eye reaches, there are verdure and running water. The red rose, the violet, and the narcissus grow of themselves; in the fields, there are all kinds of flowers and all sorts of sweet-scented herbs more than can be calculated. In the soul-enchanting spring the hills and plains are filled with blossoms; the gate, the walls, the courts, the roofs, are lighted up by the torches of banquet-adorning tulips…..Thank God that on this occasion I beheld the beauties of spring.” Jahangir goes on to identify particular flowers that were special for their colour or scent, including blue or white or sandalwood-coloured jessamines, red or light yellow roses, and two kinds of lilies, one grown in gardens, the other wild.[3]
Jahangir was fascinated by the natural world surrounding him and tasked members of his painting workshop to record what he considered special or unusual. He was accompanied in Kashmir by his favorite natural history painter, Mansur, who on this trip produced more than 100 paintings of local flowers, of which three survive.[4] These works were very influential and served as the basis for a new interest in flower “portraits,” treated much like the paintings of nobles, standing quite formally and set against a plain ground, that had been commissioned by Akbar. Mansur, stimulated by Jahangir’s powers of observation, placed new emphasis on naturalistic representation.
Jahangir provided the incentive for the new style but the visual model came from Europe, in the form of manuscripts or loose sheets of scientifically accurate representations of flowers known as herbals. These became very popular in Mughal court circles and workshops and were brought to India by clergymen and other European visitors. A generic connection can be seen in the formal poses of the plants, in the interest in naturalistic portrayal, in shading, and even in the provision of extra details such as butterflies or dragonflies fluttering nearby. This connection has been demonstrated very specifically by the discovery of a European herbal subject, dating from 1608 (first edition), and a Mughal copy, attributable to about 1635.[5] The flower style, thus initiated in paintings under the emperor Jahangir in the later years of his rule, did not become the dominant court style until the reigns of Shah Jahan (r. 1627 – 1658) and his son Aurangzeb (r. 1658 – 1707).
As the new ornamental style in architectural decoration and the decorative arts took hold, single flower “portraits” were given more elaborate form. Naturalistic flowers were thus shown in profile in rows, combined with lattice patterns, or presented in a more abstract way as blossoms instead of flowers in profile.[6]
After about 1630, the flower style largely (but not entirely) supplanted the previous style which had been favoured at the Persian court. This Persian style consisted of two main varieties: one was a pictorial type dependent on the book-illustration tradition, the other involved patterns based on symmetrical networks of scrolling vines and palmettes and sometimes overlaid with animals or medallions.[7] Although there are scattered references to carpet production in India in earlier times, it was under the rule of the emperor Akbar (r. 1556 – 1605) that court workshops for carpets were established, first at Fatehpur Sikri and Agra and later at Lahore and Kashmir. Commercial manufacture existed in parallel to court production. In about 1590, Abul Fazl, Akbar’s chronicler, stresses how many weavers had settled in India and how active the trade in carpets had become. Although carpet production in India was now flourishing, demand for Persian carpets continued to be strong.[8] However, after 1630 or so, the vast majority of court carpets woven in India reflected the new taste for the Flower Style.
Pashmina
In most rug-weaving cultures, silk is the most valuable and sumptuous fibre available and is thus the one typically employed for the pile of the highest grades of luxury carpets. In Mughal culture, in northern India, this was not the case. The most highly prized fibre for the pile, that part of the carpet one actually had physical contact with and sat or walked on, was not silk but goat hair, pashmina, the undercoat of the Himalayan mountain goat (Capra hircus laniger). The term pashmina derives from pashm, the generic Persian word for all types of wool. It is also known as cashmere wool, as it was associated with Kashmir, famous for its shawls made from this material. But Kashmir was not the source of the wool, it was merely the transfer point for the fibre collected from the mountainous areas surrounding the city. The trade in this highly prized wool was controlled by the maharajah of Kashmir.[9]
Carpets made with pashmina pile are among the finest carpets ever woven. The highest knot count exceeds 2,000 knots per inch, which goes beyond what the eye can “read.”[10] The majority of examples fall between 400 and 1,000 knots per inch; the carpet proposed here has an average of 672 knots per inch. 17th- century examples have silk foundations whose relative fineness, together with the fineness of the knots themselves, enable the weaver to achieve beautiful curved lines as well as highly naturalistic details. Some later pashmina rugs, which fall into a category with small-scale floral patterns (often called millefleur), show some relaxation of standards, with cotton appearing instead of silk in the foundation, resulting in a slightly coarser weave. Some later millefleur rugs have a pile of sheeps wool, not pashmina. This brings up another point, namely that it is difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish by touch the wool pile of a fine sheeps wool rug versus a “relatively” coarse pashmina pile.
The carpet proposed here has a pashmina pile and silk foundation. A classic feature of 17th- century pashmina carpets is the grouping of warp threads into coloured stripes often visible in the end fringes, which are an extension of the warps. The coloured end fringes are missing in our carpet but they are visible as green, white, and red stripes under very close examination of the piled area, thus confirming that the proposed carpet does indeed belong to this prestigious group. The coloured stripes perhaps aided the weavers in terms of pattern registration or, more likely, the end fringes provided a colourful touch that appealed to the emperor’s personal taste.[11]
Painting with Knots
The fineness of weave achievable with pashmina as the pile fibre, as well as the ability of the goat hair to yield beautifully saturated colours, led the Indian weavers to become masters of colour, to a degree more often associated with painters and illuminators. The juxtaposition of closely related colours without the separation deriving from outlines, a technique that might be described as “shading,” was occasionally used in a Persian context but was used to a much greater extent in India, especially in pashmina examples. Shading was used to provide a sculptural quality or three-dimensional effect, thus enhancing the naturalism as represented in imported European goods such as the herbals or engravings of ornamental panels. Shading is used to rich effect in the proposed carpet in the sequence of greens in the leafy lattice elements and the reds and pinks of the cockscomb (?) blossoms.
A second technique mastered by Indian weavers may be termed “colour mixing,” in which knots of two different colours, not necessarily related, are juxtaposed in a chequerboard fashion, yielding a third colour. This also increases the naturalism but, even more importantly, it broadens the palette at the weaver’s disposal.[12] Persian carpet-weavers liked to represent water in this way, juxtaposing blue and white knots to create a shimmering effect. It was used widely in Indian carpets and some were even made with more commonplace materials. The red petals of the cockscomb blossoms in the proposed carpet show this technique very well, with an inner red zone created by mixing red and white and an outer zone of pink created by mixing pink and white. Each cockscomb blossom has an exterior outline in black, but the colours of the interior components are allowed to merge without outline.
Patterns
There are many extant examples of Indian carpets with flowers shown in silhouette. Some of these, of commercial grade, have flowers arranged in rows on a plain ground. Typically, many of these rugs have a rectangular format while a significant number have a distinctive arch “cut-out” on one long side. A few are circular or polygonal in format. The purpose of these shaped carpets is not clear but a function as tent furnishings has been suggested.[13]
During the course of Shah Jahan’s reign, various types of lattice constructions were introduced as an organizing principle for flowers and also blossoms. Lattice designs could vary considerably. One carpet, represented by fragments in London and Dusseldorf, has flowers occupying ovoid compartments formed by serrated vines that meander back and forth.[14] Some lattice designs, as in a fragment in the Keir Collection, may have been inspired by tile patterns.[15] Other lattices were taken from European ornamental models based on classical revival themes of abundant vegetation (especially acanthus) and strapwork. Such designs became popular in India in architectural decoration, illuminations for manuscripts, and decorative arts in general.
The orientation of the flowers in some examples was directional, that is, oriented in one direction, but, in some instances such as the present carpet, the orientation was radial. The patterns are found in both pashmina and the more common sheeps wool carpets.
Lattice patterns were also conceived that employed blossoms instead of silhouetted flowers. A lone pashmina example survives in the large assemblage of classical Indian and Persian carpets formed by the maharajas of Amber. The group was transferred from Amber to Jaipur after 1725 when that city was chosen as the new capital, and the collection has been linked to Jaipur since then.
The field pattern of the Jaipur pashmina carpet, although damaged, can still be easily made out to consist of thick green vines that scroll and loop and turn back on themselves in a scheme that repeats. Attached to the vines are flower blossoms shown singly and in clusters. The main border is of special interest because it matches the design in the proposed carpet, as does the main border of a splendid but very fragmentary pashmina carpet in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. In all three versions, a thick vine with shaded colouring moves back and forth in the border, its ends terminating in elaborate flower heads. Little cloud-wisps embellish the thick vine.[16]
A full report on the Jaipur collection was prepared in 1929 by a staff member of the Victoria and Albert Museum. The Campbell Report, as it is generally known, listed basic information and brief descriptions of 212 carpets in the collection.[17] Some of these carpets have inventory labels attached (or are recorded in registers). The earliest entry happens to be for a Persian carpet acquired in 1632. Labeled flower style carpets were acquired especially in the 1650s and 1660s. Although no inventory or purchase information survives for the Jaipur pashmina carpet, it was probably acquired at about that time in Kashmir or Lahore, where there were royal carpet workshops. Although that carpet remains in Jaipur, over the years, beginning well in advance of the Campbell Report in 1929, many carpets left the Jaipur collection. A review of the Campbell Report offers no evidence that the present carpet was ever part of it.
Although the proposed carpet is not absolutely complete, what remains is in splendid condition and is large and visually complete enough to understand and appreciate what the original consisted of. 17th century pashmina carpets from India are incredibly rare. There are just eight complete pieces, including several in a small format. Seven of these now reside in institutional collections; only one is in private hands. There are thirteen fragmentary examples which are nevertheless complete enough to be “readable” and visually appealing. Ten of these belong to institutional collections; one, the carpet presented here, resides in a private collection; and the present whereabouts of the two remaining is not known. There are also numerous, at least 30, smaller fragments in varying states of condition, more or less equally divided between institutional and private collections. Therefore, only four of the twenty-one complete or nearly complete examples counted here may remain in circulation.
The present carpet is exemplary in many ways. It has brilliant colour and arguably one of the most beautiful designs. It was made with the most luxurious and costly materials known among carpet-weaving cultures, especially the pashmina (goat hair) used for the pile but also the silk comprising the foundation and is one of the finest carpets ever produced. The weaver’s skillful use of colour mixing and shading is matched in only a few other (fragmentary) Indian examples and evokes a serene and appealing naturalistic effect. It is difficult to imagine a more perfect set of circumstances than those found here in one of the world’s great carpets – a visionary and sensitive designer, an enlightened imperial patron with essentially unlimited resources, and craftsmen with the experience and skills to work in royal workshops at the very highest level.
Footnotes
[1] We acknowledge the kind assistance of Rosemary Crill with the tentative identification of the flowers in the field. The flowers in the major and minor borders have not been identified.
[2] Two fragments come from the field of this carpet. The larger one belongs to the City of Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, no. Or. 1977.09.01, Oriental section. The fragment was loaned in 1962 from the estate of Sir Herbert Smith. It had belonged to his father, Sir Herbert Smith, first Baronet, who was a prominent figure in the British carpet industry who died in 1940. The carpet was purchased by the museum in 1977. See The Eastern Carpet in the Western World from the 15th to the 17th century, London: Hayward Gallery, 1983, p.103, no.84. A glass negative of the Bristol fragment was noted (personal communication) by Alberto Boralevi in the Bardini Archive, suggesting that it once belonged to Stefano Bardini, the renowned Florentine antiquarian, between about 1875 and the early decades of the 20th century. The present whereabouts of the unpublished smaller field fragment is unknown. The third known fragment comes from the main border; see Angela Volker, Die Orientalischen Knupfteppiche im MAK, Vienna: Osterreichisches Museum fur Angewandte Kunst, 2001, pp.320-21, no.117, acquired in 1884. The approximate original length of the proposed carpet was determined by Steven Cohen in accordance with his reconstruction of the original.
[3] The Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri or Memoirs of Jahangir, trans. Alexander Rogers and ed. Henry Beveridge, London, 1909, reprint Lahore, 1974, vol.2, pp.143-45.
[4] A western Asiatic tulip in the Maulana Azad Library of the Aligarh Muslim University in Uttar Pradesh was published in Stuart Cary Welch, India: Art and Culture 1300-1900, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, p.220, no.145. An iris was published in Yedda Godard, “Un Album de portraits des princes timurides de l’lnde,” Athar-e Iran 2 (1937) pp.273-74. The third painting, of a narcissus, is unpublished.
[5] The subject is a Martagon lily. Both versions of the image were published by Robert Skelton in “A Decorative Motif in Mughal Art,” ed. P. Pal, Aspects of Indian Art, 1972, Leiden, p.151 and pl. XC and XCI. See also Vivian A. Rich, “Mughal Floral Painting and Its European Sources,” in Oriental Art, n.s., 33, no.2 (Summer 1987), pp. 183-89.
[6] For an extensive discussion of the flower style, see Daniel Walker, Flowers Underfoot: Indian Carpets of the Mughal Era, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1997, pp. 86-113. Hereafter, this publication will be referred to as FUF.
[7] The Persian style is described in detail in FUF, pp.29-85.
[8] See Abul Fazl, The Ain-I Akbari by Abu’l-Fazl Allami, trans. Henry Blochmann and H. S. Jarrett, and ed. D.C. Phillott, Calcutta: Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, 3rd ed.,1977, vol.1, p.57. Royal workshops are discussed in FUF, p.7.
[9] A more detailed discussion of pashmina is offered by Steven Cohen in “The Use of Fine Goat Hair for the production of Luxury Textiles,” in Jon Thompson, Daniel Shaffer, and Pirjetta Mildh, eds., Carpets and Textiles in the Iranian World 1400-1700, Oxford and Genoa, The May Beattie Archive and the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, and The Bruschettini Foundation for Islamic and Asian Art, 2010, especially pp.125-31.
[10] Only three pashmina carpets approach or meet the unbelievable level of 2,000 knots per inch. The finest of all is a heavily damaged rug in the Textile Museum, Washington, D.C. (R63.00.22), published in FUF, p.22, fig.7. A beautiful and complete example, still in private hands, shows a large poppy within a niche. This is illustrated in FUF, p,91, fig.88. The third example survives only in small fragments, the largest of which belongs to the Metropolitan Museum (no.14.40.722). It is published in FUF, pp.24-25, fig.10.
[11] The connection of the multi-coloured fringe to imperial court furnishings is made in a portrait of Shah Jahan dated 1627-28, in which the emperor stands on a platform covered with small colourful fringed rugs. See Stuart Cary Welch et al., The Emperors’ Album: Images of Mughal India, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1987, no,58, p.200.
[12] Shading and colour-mixing were occasionally utilized in carpets made with sheeps wool pile, sometimes with impressive results. In an Indian animal carpet in the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. (no. 1942.9.475),
two leaping antelopes have dark upper bodies and white bellies. These colours meet and are mixed in a narrow transitional zone of intermediate tone and naturalistic appearance. See FUF p.23, fig.9, and p.55, fig.48.
[13] See FUF, pp.95-105 for a discussion of this large and curious group.
[14] Victoria and Albert Museum, London (T – 403-1910), published FUF p.107, fig.105. For the piece(s) in the Kunstmuseum Dusseldorf, see Fredrik R. Martin, A History of Oriental Carpets before 1800, Vienna, 1908, p.92, fig.221.
[15] Keir Collection, England. Published Friedrich Spuhler, Islamic Carpets and Textiles in the Keir Collection, trans. George and Cornelia Wingfield Digby, London, 1978, cat. No.60.
[16] The Jaipur pashmina carpet, illustrated in FUF, p.108, once part of the Maharaja’s collection, is one of a number of carpets donated to the Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum in Jaipur (Inv. No.C-15). The Metropolitan Museum fragments (Inv. No. 14.40.719) are published in FUF, pp.82-83.
[17] The history and contents of the Campbell Report are reviewed in FUF, pp.12-14. The Report itself, including the images, are on file at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
(A full structural analysis undertaken by Dr. Steven Cohen, is available online)
Warp: silk, blue, green, red, ivory, U2S, highly depressed
Weft: silk, scarlet x 3
Pile: pashmina, asymmetric knot open to the left
Knots: approximately 11V x 10H per cm.sq.
Sides and Ends: Nonextant
The following lot essay has been written, for the purposes of this catalogue, by Daniel Walker, former Patti Cadby Birch Curator in Charge of the Department of Islamic Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Director of The Textile Museum, Washington, D.C.
The present carpet represents the highest level of production found at the Mughal court in the middle of the 17th century. With knots of pashmina wool, fine goat hair traditionally used to weave shawls in Kashmir and Lahore, and a foundation of silk, the carpet consists of luxury materials. The weave is extremely fine, with an average of 672 knots per square inch. The field pattern involves an elaborate diamond lattice framework of leafy foliage which twists and coils at regular intervals. The lattice forms cartouche-like compartments containing single flowers arranged in a radial formation - lilies (white), sunflowers (yellow), and possibly cockscomb (red, pink, and white) -- shown in silhouette on a deep and brilliant crimson-red ground.[1] The main border design features a pattern of reciprocal vines whose curves embrace clusters of unidentified flower blossoms. These vines, also set against a red ground, incorporate miniature stylised cloud wisps derived from Chinese tradition. The main border is framed by identical minor borders consisting of a reciprocal vine bearing small blossoms and leaves. The fine weave allows for the presentation of minute naturalistic details, especially in the blossoms of the flowers, the lattice, and the vine scroll in the main border. The carpet is now almost square but it has been shortened: originally the length was approximately 4.4 meters. Three smaller fragments in public and private collections are probably survivors of a prior campaign to excise areas of damage.[2]
The Flower Style
The genesis of the flower style in Indian art can be traced to the visit of the Mughal emperor Jahangir (r. 1605-27) to Kashmir in 1620. Not known as an innovator or a territorial expansionist or a religious radical, Jahangir (The World-Seizer) had the wisdom to maintain the tolerant approach and policies of his father Akbar, who had ruled successfully for fifty years. Akbar had been a great patron of the arts and established royal carpet workshops during the last quarter of the 16th century. With the affairs of state well in hand, Jahangir not only continued to support the arts, he was a true collector and a sensitive connoisseur as well. He had a special appreciation for the beautiful and the unusual, such as exotic animals, for example.
Jahangir had been to Kashmir before but not in the Spring, when the flowers were in full bloom, and he recorded his enthusiasm in rich detail in his memoirs:
“Kashmir is a garden of eternal spring, or an iron fort to a palace of kings – A delightful flower-bed, and a heart-expanding heritage for dervishes…. Wherever the eye reaches, there are verdure and running water. The red rose, the violet, and the narcissus grow of themselves; in the fields, there are all kinds of flowers and all sorts of sweet-scented herbs more than can be calculated. In the soul-enchanting spring the hills and plains are filled with blossoms; the gate, the walls, the courts, the roofs, are lighted up by the torches of banquet-adorning tulips…..Thank God that on this occasion I beheld the beauties of spring.” Jahangir goes on to identify particular flowers that were special for their colour or scent, including blue or white or sandalwood-coloured jessamines, red or light yellow roses, and two kinds of lilies, one grown in gardens, the other wild.[3]
Jahangir was fascinated by the natural world surrounding him and tasked members of his painting workshop to record what he considered special or unusual. He was accompanied in Kashmir by his favorite natural history painter, Mansur, who on this trip produced more than 100 paintings of local flowers, of which three survive.[4] These works were very influential and served as the basis for a new interest in flower “portraits,” treated much like the paintings of nobles, standing quite formally and set against a plain ground, that had been commissioned by Akbar. Mansur, stimulated by Jahangir’s powers of observation, placed new emphasis on naturalistic representation.
Jahangir provided the incentive for the new style but the visual model came from Europe, in the form of manuscripts or loose sheets of scientifically accurate representations of flowers known as herbals. These became very popular in Mughal court circles and workshops and were brought to India by clergymen and other European visitors. A generic connection can be seen in the formal poses of the plants, in the interest in naturalistic portrayal, in shading, and even in the provision of extra details such as butterflies or dragonflies fluttering nearby. This connection has been demonstrated very specifically by the discovery of a European herbal subject, dating from 1608 (first edition), and a Mughal copy, attributable to about 1635.[5] The flower style, thus initiated in paintings under the emperor Jahangir in the later years of his rule, did not become the dominant court style until the reigns of Shah Jahan (r. 1627 – 1658) and his son Aurangzeb (r. 1658 – 1707).
As the new ornamental style in architectural decoration and the decorative arts took hold, single flower “portraits” were given more elaborate form. Naturalistic flowers were thus shown in profile in rows, combined with lattice patterns, or presented in a more abstract way as blossoms instead of flowers in profile.[6]
After about 1630, the flower style largely (but not entirely) supplanted the previous style which had been favoured at the Persian court. This Persian style consisted of two main varieties: one was a pictorial type dependent on the book-illustration tradition, the other involved patterns based on symmetrical networks of scrolling vines and palmettes and sometimes overlaid with animals or medallions.[7] Although there are scattered references to carpet production in India in earlier times, it was under the rule of the emperor Akbar (r. 1556 – 1605) that court workshops for carpets were established, first at Fatehpur Sikri and Agra and later at Lahore and Kashmir. Commercial manufacture existed in parallel to court production. In about 1590, Abul Fazl, Akbar’s chronicler, stresses how many weavers had settled in India and how active the trade in carpets had become. Although carpet production in India was now flourishing, demand for Persian carpets continued to be strong.[8] However, after 1630 or so, the vast majority of court carpets woven in India reflected the new taste for the Flower Style.
Pashmina
In most rug-weaving cultures, silk is the most valuable and sumptuous fibre available and is thus the one typically employed for the pile of the highest grades of luxury carpets. In Mughal culture, in northern India, this was not the case. The most highly prized fibre for the pile, that part of the carpet one actually had physical contact with and sat or walked on, was not silk but goat hair, pashmina, the undercoat of the Himalayan mountain goat (Capra hircus laniger). The term pashmina derives from pashm, the generic Persian word for all types of wool. It is also known as cashmere wool, as it was associated with Kashmir, famous for its shawls made from this material. But Kashmir was not the source of the wool, it was merely the transfer point for the fibre collected from the mountainous areas surrounding the city. The trade in this highly prized wool was controlled by the maharajah of Kashmir.[9]
Carpets made with pashmina pile are among the finest carpets ever woven. The highest knot count exceeds 2,000 knots per inch, which goes beyond what the eye can “read.”[10] The majority of examples fall between 400 and 1,000 knots per inch; the carpet proposed here has an average of 672 knots per inch. 17th- century examples have silk foundations whose relative fineness, together with the fineness of the knots themselves, enable the weaver to achieve beautiful curved lines as well as highly naturalistic details. Some later pashmina rugs, which fall into a category with small-scale floral patterns (often called millefleur), show some relaxation of standards, with cotton appearing instead of silk in the foundation, resulting in a slightly coarser weave. Some later millefleur rugs have a pile of sheeps wool, not pashmina. This brings up another point, namely that it is difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish by touch the wool pile of a fine sheeps wool rug versus a “relatively” coarse pashmina pile.
The carpet proposed here has a pashmina pile and silk foundation. A classic feature of 17th- century pashmina carpets is the grouping of warp threads into coloured stripes often visible in the end fringes, which are an extension of the warps. The coloured end fringes are missing in our carpet but they are visible as green, white, and red stripes under very close examination of the piled area, thus confirming that the proposed carpet does indeed belong to this prestigious group. The coloured stripes perhaps aided the weavers in terms of pattern registration or, more likely, the end fringes provided a colourful touch that appealed to the emperor’s personal taste.[11]
Painting with Knots
The fineness of weave achievable with pashmina as the pile fibre, as well as the ability of the goat hair to yield beautifully saturated colours, led the Indian weavers to become masters of colour, to a degree more often associated with painters and illuminators. The juxtaposition of closely related colours without the separation deriving from outlines, a technique that might be described as “shading,” was occasionally used in a Persian context but was used to a much greater extent in India, especially in pashmina examples. Shading was used to provide a sculptural quality or three-dimensional effect, thus enhancing the naturalism as represented in imported European goods such as the herbals or engravings of ornamental panels. Shading is used to rich effect in the proposed carpet in the sequence of greens in the leafy lattice elements and the reds and pinks of the cockscomb (?) blossoms.
A second technique mastered by Indian weavers may be termed “colour mixing,” in which knots of two different colours, not necessarily related, are juxtaposed in a chequerboard fashion, yielding a third colour. This also increases the naturalism but, even more importantly, it broadens the palette at the weaver’s disposal.[12] Persian carpet-weavers liked to represent water in this way, juxtaposing blue and white knots to create a shimmering effect. It was used widely in Indian carpets and some were even made with more commonplace materials. The red petals of the cockscomb blossoms in the proposed carpet show this technique very well, with an inner red zone created by mixing red and white and an outer zone of pink created by mixing pink and white. Each cockscomb blossom has an exterior outline in black, but the colours of the interior components are allowed to merge without outline.
Patterns
There are many extant examples of Indian carpets with flowers shown in silhouette. Some of these, of commercial grade, have flowers arranged in rows on a plain ground. Typically, many of these rugs have a rectangular format while a significant number have a distinctive arch “cut-out” on one long side. A few are circular or polygonal in format. The purpose of these shaped carpets is not clear but a function as tent furnishings has been suggested.[13]
During the course of Shah Jahan’s reign, various types of lattice constructions were introduced as an organizing principle for flowers and also blossoms. Lattice designs could vary considerably. One carpet, represented by fragments in London and Dusseldorf, has flowers occupying ovoid compartments formed by serrated vines that meander back and forth.[14] Some lattice designs, as in a fragment in the Keir Collection, may have been inspired by tile patterns.[15] Other lattices were taken from European ornamental models based on classical revival themes of abundant vegetation (especially acanthus) and strapwork. Such designs became popular in India in architectural decoration, illuminations for manuscripts, and decorative arts in general.
The orientation of the flowers in some examples was directional, that is, oriented in one direction, but, in some instances such as the present carpet, the orientation was radial. The patterns are found in both pashmina and the more common sheeps wool carpets.
Lattice patterns were also conceived that employed blossoms instead of silhouetted flowers. A lone pashmina example survives in the large assemblage of classical Indian and Persian carpets formed by the maharajas of Amber. The group was transferred from Amber to Jaipur after 1725 when that city was chosen as the new capital, and the collection has been linked to Jaipur since then.
The field pattern of the Jaipur pashmina carpet, although damaged, can still be easily made out to consist of thick green vines that scroll and loop and turn back on themselves in a scheme that repeats. Attached to the vines are flower blossoms shown singly and in clusters. The main border is of special interest because it matches the design in the proposed carpet, as does the main border of a splendid but very fragmentary pashmina carpet in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. In all three versions, a thick vine with shaded colouring moves back and forth in the border, its ends terminating in elaborate flower heads. Little cloud-wisps embellish the thick vine.[16]
A full report on the Jaipur collection was prepared in 1929 by a staff member of the Victoria and Albert Museum. The Campbell Report, as it is generally known, listed basic information and brief descriptions of 212 carpets in the collection.[17] Some of these carpets have inventory labels attached (or are recorded in registers). The earliest entry happens to be for a Persian carpet acquired in 1632. Labeled flower style carpets were acquired especially in the 1650s and 1660s. Although no inventory or purchase information survives for the Jaipur pashmina carpet, it was probably acquired at about that time in Kashmir or Lahore, where there were royal carpet workshops. Although that carpet remains in Jaipur, over the years, beginning well in advance of the Campbell Report in 1929, many carpets left the Jaipur collection. A review of the Campbell Report offers no evidence that the present carpet was ever part of it.
Although the proposed carpet is not absolutely complete, what remains is in splendid condition and is large and visually complete enough to understand and appreciate what the original consisted of. 17th century pashmina carpets from India are incredibly rare. There are just eight complete pieces, including several in a small format. Seven of these now reside in institutional collections; only one is in private hands. There are thirteen fragmentary examples which are nevertheless complete enough to be “readable” and visually appealing. Ten of these belong to institutional collections; one, the carpet presented here, resides in a private collection; and the present whereabouts of the two remaining is not known. There are also numerous, at least 30, smaller fragments in varying states of condition, more or less equally divided between institutional and private collections. Therefore, only four of the twenty-one complete or nearly complete examples counted here may remain in circulation.
The present carpet is exemplary in many ways. It has brilliant colour and arguably one of the most beautiful designs. It was made with the most luxurious and costly materials known among carpet-weaving cultures, especially the pashmina (goat hair) used for the pile but also the silk comprising the foundation and is one of the finest carpets ever produced. The weaver’s skillful use of colour mixing and shading is matched in only a few other (fragmentary) Indian examples and evokes a serene and appealing naturalistic effect. It is difficult to imagine a more perfect set of circumstances than those found here in one of the world’s great carpets – a visionary and sensitive designer, an enlightened imperial patron with essentially unlimited resources, and craftsmen with the experience and skills to work in royal workshops at the very highest level.
Footnotes
[1] We acknowledge the kind assistance of Rosemary Crill with the tentative identification of the flowers in the field. The flowers in the major and minor borders have not been identified.
[2] Two fragments come from the field of this carpet. The larger one belongs to the City of Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, no. Or. 1977.09.01, Oriental section. The fragment was loaned in 1962 from the estate of Sir Herbert Smith. It had belonged to his father, Sir Herbert Smith, first Baronet, who was a prominent figure in the British carpet industry who died in 1940. The carpet was purchased by the museum in 1977. See The Eastern Carpet in the Western World from the 15th to the 17th century, London: Hayward Gallery, 1983, p.103, no.84. A glass negative of the Bristol fragment was noted (personal communication) by Alberto Boralevi in the Bardini Archive, suggesting that it once belonged to Stefano Bardini, the renowned Florentine antiquarian, between about 1875 and the early decades of the 20th century. The present whereabouts of the unpublished smaller field fragment is unknown. The third known fragment comes from the main border; see Angela Volker, Die Orientalischen Knupfteppiche im MAK, Vienna: Osterreichisches Museum fur Angewandte Kunst, 2001, pp.320-21, no.117, acquired in 1884. The approximate original length of the proposed carpet was determined by Steven Cohen in accordance with his reconstruction of the original.
[3] The Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri or Memoirs of Jahangir, trans. Alexander Rogers and ed. Henry Beveridge, London, 1909, reprint Lahore, 1974, vol.2, pp.143-45.
[4] A western Asiatic tulip in the Maulana Azad Library of the Aligarh Muslim University in Uttar Pradesh was published in Stuart Cary Welch, India: Art and Culture 1300-1900, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, p.220, no.145. An iris was published in Yedda Godard, “Un Album de portraits des princes timurides de l’lnde,” Athar-e Iran 2 (1937) pp.273-74. The third painting, of a narcissus, is unpublished.
[5] The subject is a Martagon lily. Both versions of the image were published by Robert Skelton in “A Decorative Motif in Mughal Art,” ed. P. Pal, Aspects of Indian Art, 1972, Leiden, p.151 and pl. XC and XCI. See also Vivian A. Rich, “Mughal Floral Painting and Its European Sources,” in Oriental Art, n.s., 33, no.2 (Summer 1987), pp. 183-89.
[6] For an extensive discussion of the flower style, see Daniel Walker, Flowers Underfoot: Indian Carpets of the Mughal Era, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1997, pp. 86-113. Hereafter, this publication will be referred to as FUF.
[7] The Persian style is described in detail in FUF, pp.29-85.
[8] See Abul Fazl, The Ain-I Akbari by Abu’l-Fazl Allami, trans. Henry Blochmann and H. S. Jarrett, and ed. D.C. Phillott, Calcutta: Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, 3rd ed.,1977, vol.1, p.57. Royal workshops are discussed in FUF, p.7.
[9] A more detailed discussion of pashmina is offered by Steven Cohen in “The Use of Fine Goat Hair for the production of Luxury Textiles,” in Jon Thompson, Daniel Shaffer, and Pirjetta Mildh, eds., Carpets and Textiles in the Iranian World 1400-1700, Oxford and Genoa, The May Beattie Archive and the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, and The Bruschettini Foundation for Islamic and Asian Art, 2010, especially pp.125-31.
[10] Only three pashmina carpets approach or meet the unbelievable level of 2,000 knots per inch. The finest of all is a heavily damaged rug in the Textile Museum, Washington, D.C. (R63.00.22), published in FUF, p.22, fig.7. A beautiful and complete example, still in private hands, shows a large poppy within a niche. This is illustrated in FUF, p,91, fig.88. The third example survives only in small fragments, the largest of which belongs to the Metropolitan Museum (no.14.40.722). It is published in FUF, pp.24-25, fig.10.
[11] The connection of the multi-coloured fringe to imperial court furnishings is made in a portrait of Shah Jahan dated 1627-28, in which the emperor stands on a platform covered with small colourful fringed rugs. See Stuart Cary Welch et al., The Emperors’ Album: Images of Mughal India, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1987, no,58, p.200.
[12] Shading and colour-mixing were occasionally utilized in carpets made with sheeps wool pile, sometimes with impressive results. In an Indian animal carpet in the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. (no. 1942.9.475),
two leaping antelopes have dark upper bodies and white bellies. These colours meet and are mixed in a narrow transitional zone of intermediate tone and naturalistic appearance. See FUF p.23, fig.9, and p.55, fig.48.
[13] See FUF, pp.95-105 for a discussion of this large and curious group.
[14] Victoria and Albert Museum, London (T – 403-1910), published FUF p.107, fig.105. For the piece(s) in the Kunstmuseum Dusseldorf, see Fredrik R. Martin, A History of Oriental Carpets before 1800, Vienna, 1908, p.92, fig.221.
[15] Keir Collection, England. Published Friedrich Spuhler, Islamic Carpets and Textiles in the Keir Collection, trans. George and Cornelia Wingfield Digby, London, 1978, cat. No.60.
[16] The Jaipur pashmina carpet, illustrated in FUF, p.108, once part of the Maharaja’s collection, is one of a number of carpets donated to the Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum in Jaipur (Inv. No.C-15). The Metropolitan Museum fragments (Inv. No. 14.40.719) are published in FUF, pp.82-83.
[17] The history and contents of the Campbell Report are reviewed in FUF, pp.12-14. The Report itself, including the images, are on file at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.