A rare Mughal pashmina carpet from the court of Emperor Shah Jahan: ‘a woven masterpiece of the very highest quality’

In most rug-weaving cultures, silk is the most valuable fibre in the production of pile carpets. In the Mughal culture of South Asia, however, it was pashmina — the fine undercoat of the Himalayan mountain goat also used to weave shawls in Kashmir and Lahore.

The Mughal pashmina carpets of the 17th century are among the finest ever produced. ‘Each pashmina fibre is about one sixth the width of a human hair,’ says Louise Broadhurst, International Head of Oriental Rugs & Carpets at Christie’s in London. ‘The highest knot count exceeds 2,000 knots per inch, which is beyond what the eye can read.’

Owing in part to the fragility of the silk and the finely spun pashmina pile, they are also exceedingly rare. Only eight complete Mughal pashmina carpets from the 17th century are known to exist, seven of which reside in museums. There are 13 documented ‘readable’ fragmentary carpets, 10 are in institutional collections, two are in unknown locations and one (the present carpet) is in private hands.

The latter is being offered for sale in Art of the Islamic and Indian Worlds including Oriental Rugs and Carpets on 27 October 2022 at Christie’s in London.

The carpet was woven around 1650 for the court of Shah Jahan (reigned 1628-58), the fifth emperor of the Mughal Empire.

Shah Jahan was an enlightened patron of the arts, commissioning splendid buildings — including the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort in Agra — and supported the royal weaving workshops that had been established by his grandfather, Akbar (reigned 1556-1605), first at Fatehpur Sikri and Agra, and later at Lahore and Kashmir.

With an average of 500 knots of pashmina per square inch and a fine silk foundation, this carpet represents the highest level of production found at the Mughal court in the middle of the 17th century. Although a fragment, the present carpet measures 2.75 metres by 2.74 metres, and is probably just over half its original length.

‘The lustrous pashmina wool is of a particularly fine quality,’ says Broadhurst. ‘Only the emperor could have afforded a carpet of this size made from such prized materials.’

The carpet has a deep and brilliant colour palette. ‘The dyes have retained an intense saturation,’ Broadhurst explains, noting that the dye for the crimson ground would have been made from the lac insect, which was famously used in India and Southeast Asia. ‘The weavers’ skilful use of colour mixing and shading is matched in only a few other fragmentary Indian examples.’

Shading is achieved by juxtaposing closely related colours without the use of defined outlines, as seen in the sequence of greens in the leafy lattice elements of the carpet below. Colour mixing involves knots of two different colours — not necessarily related — being brought together in chequerboard fashion to yield a third tonal shade. This is seen in the red petals of the blossoms in the field.

‘These techniques not only broadened the weavers’ colour palette, but also offered a sculptural perspective that enhances the naturalistic effect of the individual flowers,’ says the specialist.

Although first introduced to Kashmir by the Mughal Emperor Jahangir (reigned 1605-27) around 1620, the flower style only became popular in architecture and the decorative arts under his son, Shah Jahan.

‘Shah Jahan was particularly influenced by collections of scientifically accurate botanical watercolours known as “herbals”, which came from the West,’ says Broadhurst. ‘He would take his court painters to Kashmir, where they would record flowers in a naturalistic way.’

These paintings later served as inspiration for royal interiors and furnishings, typified by this carpet with its naturalistic flower design. The field pattern involves a diamond lattice framework of leafy foliage, which forms cartouche-like compartments containing identifiable lilies, sunflowers and cockscomb, while the main border depicts vines entwined around clusters of blossoms.

‘The wonderful thing about this carpet is that you can enjoy the pattern from any angle,’ says Broadhurst. ‘The radial design encourages you to walk around it, and it is only then that you can appreciate the lustrous pile which changes in appearance depending on where you stand.’

The reverberating effect of the floral motifs used throughout the palace interiors would have been extremely striking. ‘Seeing the carpet at Elveden gives us a little glimpse of what it might have looked like in the 17th century,’ says the specialist, referring to Elveden Hall in Suffolk, where the film above was made.

The Elveden estate was acquired in 1863 by the Maharaja Duleep Singh, the last ruler of the Sikh Empire, who was exiled to England at the age of 15 following the Anglo-Sikh Wars. He enlarged the house and remodelled the interiors to resemble those of the Mughal palaces in which he had grown up.

The carpet was last seen in public in the landmark 1997 exhibition Flowers Underfoot: Indian Carpets of the Mughal Era  at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and has never previously been offered at auction.

‘This woven masterpiece is an extraordinary and rare survivor of the courtly decoration commissioned by Shah Jahan,’ says Broadhurst. ‘It is a remarkably beautiful object that one cannot help but admire, both for its delicately bold and intensely coloured design and for its masterly execution, which is of the very highest quality.’