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Sale Information
Christie's SALE 7572 —
ORIENTAL RUGS AND
CARPETS
10 April 2008
London, King Street
LOT 108
A 'LOTTO' RUG
WEST ANATOLIA, 16TH CENTURY
Scattered areas of
restoration and repiling throughout, selvages replaced
6ft.7in. x
4ft.7in. (201cm. x 140cm.)
Price Realized £42,500 ($83,853)
Estimate £22,000 - £28,000 ($43,274 - $55,076)
Saleroom Notice
Please note that the date in the catalogue is
incorrect and should read 16TH CENTURY.
Literature
Christopher
Alexander; A Foreshadowing of 21st Century Art, New York and Oxford, 1993,
pp.216-220
Hali, Issue 56, 1991, front cover and p.6
Lot Notes
The repeat 'Lotto' pattern was reproduced countless times for
over two centuries, however very few examples are known within this group
that do not have the classic red and yellow colour field combination.
Indeed, the unusual pure red and blue combination of the present lot is
the only published example according to the Hali article noted above. The
most famous example which has on its red field a design that is not wholly
yellow is the magnificent carpet in Berlin (Turkish Carpets from the 15th
to the 18th Centuries, exhibition catalogue, Istanbul, 1996, p.103 amongst
many other illustrations). Three further examples are known which combine
blue and yellow motifs on the red field (Edouardo Concaro and Alberto
Levi, Sovrani Tappeti exhibition catalogue, Milan, 1999, no.11, p.35; Emil
Schmutzler, Altorientalischer Teppiche in Siebenbürgen, Leipzig, 1933,
pl.19, and one in the Detroit Institute of Arts, Volkmar Ganzhorn, The
Christian Oriental Carpet, Cologne, 1991, pl.387, p.271). A worn example
in the Vakiflar Museum, Istanbul, has a blue design on a brown field
(Serare Yetkin, Historical Turkish Carpets, Istanbul, 1981, pl.36) and a
red field example with a sea-blue/green field in the Davide Halevim sale,
sold in these Rooms, 14 February 2001, lot 117, see also, (Walter B.
Denny, he Classical Tradition of Anatolian Carpets, London, 2002, p.88,
no.26).
Perhaps the most unusual feature however of this rug is
within the border. We are only aware of one other example of this border
design which is wonderfully drawn and appeared on an Ottoman "Bellini"
keyhole prayer rug sold in these Rooms, 17 October, 2002, lot 99. That
border design fully confirms Christopher Alexander's assertion that the
border design originates in the designs of illuminated borders. The blue
ground, the coloured panels of a certain shape outlined in white, each
overlaying a secondary level of decoration linking through in an
interlaced pattern, together with a number of other small details, are all
to be precisely paralelled in manuscript illumination.
Following
Alexander's argument, it is also true that border designs of this type
derive from Timurid manuscripts. However, although the design might have
been incorporated into rugs from a much earlier manuscript, it seems more
likely the rug copied the more contemporaneous Safavid style from Tabriz
(Lowry, Glenn D. and Nemazee, Susan: A Jeweller's Eye, Islamic Arts of the
Book from the Vever Collection, Washington D.C., 1988. pl.37; David James,
After Timur, Qur'ans of the 15th and 16th centuries, Oxford, 1992, no.35,
pp.132-3).
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