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Lot Essay
The design of this striking PETAG carpet is a direct copy of one of the most magnificent Safavid Kirman 'vase' carpet designs woven. A well documented fragment of an original 'vase' carpet, displaying the same sky-blue ground with scrolling interlaced sandy yellow and burgundy scrolling split palmette arabesques overlaying a variety of delicate floral sprays, within a burgundy border of interlaced indigo and ivory arabesques was formerly in the Bernheimer Family Collection, sold in these Rooms, 14 October 1996, lot 150. Both the colours and the design are exemplary. It is in remarkably full pile, which makes it all the more remarkable that no other fragments of this carpet have survived to the present day. The closest comparable piece is a fragment in the Museum fur angewandte Kunst, Vienna (E. Sarre and H. Trenkwald, Alt-Orientalische Teppiche, Vienna, 1926-28, Vol.II, pl.8, vol.I, pl.31, colour detail, or S.Troll, Altorientalische Teppiche, Vienna, 1951, pl.16, for the full fragment in B/W). This also has scrolling yellow and red interlaced arabesques enclosing floral sprays, but is stiffer and more regimented in concept, lacking the grace of the drawing in the Bernheimer example. The Vienna border is again of the same design and colouring but also encompassing floral scrolls, the arabesques being less delicately handled.
Also related in design, and also on a similar blue ground, are two fragments formerly in the McMullan Collection and now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (J.V. McMullan, Islamic Carpets, New York, 1965, nos.20 and 21, pp.90-91). Another fragment which could be from the same carpet is in the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. no. 1825-1888). The original from which these fragments came (assuming they are all from the same carpet), lays the freely scrolling arabesques, similar to those in the present fragment, over tendrils which issue large palmettes and flowerheads similar to those seen in the better represented 'vase and palmette trellis' carpets woven in the same technique. This link between the more usual and the arabesque designs on 'vase' carpets is demonstrated more dramatically by a red-ground example in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (M.S Dimand and J. Bailey, Oriental Rugs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1973, no.37, fig.104, p.74).
Also related in design, and also on a similar blue ground, are two fragments formerly in the McMullan Collection and now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (J.V. McMullan, Islamic Carpets, New York, 1965, nos.20 and 21, pp.90-91). Another fragment which could be from the same carpet is in the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. no. 1825-1888). The original from which these fragments came (assuming they are all from the same carpet), lays the freely scrolling arabesques, similar to those in the present fragment, over tendrils which issue large palmettes and flowerheads similar to those seen in the better represented 'vase and palmette trellis' carpets woven in the same technique. This link between the more usual and the arabesque designs on 'vase' carpets is demonstrated more dramatically by a red-ground example in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (M.S Dimand and J. Bailey, Oriental Rugs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1973, no.37, fig.104, p.74).