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OTTOMAN CARPETS IN THE XVI - XVII CENTURIES (16-17TH CENTURIES)


 

Karapinar rug, Central Anatolia, Ottoman Empire, XVII century


Price Realized £35,850 ($57,324)

Sale Information
Christies SALE 6715 —
ORIENTAL RUGS AND CARPETS
1 May 2003
London, King Street

Lot Description
A KARAPINAR RUNNER
Central Anatolia, 17th Century
The burnt-orange field with scattered angular flowerheads around a central column of four linked dark-brown cusped medallions containing angular vine around central polychrome floral angular flowerheads, small shaded blue spandrels containing angular vine in each corner, in a dark brown border of trefoil motifs with a geometric motif inner border and an ivory flowerhead outer stripe at one end, scattered areas of localised wear, corroded brown, partial loss to outer border, small stains in central field
12ft.8in. x 3ft.7in. (387cm. x 109cm.)


Lot Notes
Carpets from Karapinar, which were first discussed as a group by May Beattie, are typified by their bold use of classical Ottoman motifs, such as the stylised flowerheads in each medallion as seen in this example, accompanied by a strong use of colour (Beattie, May: "Some Rugs of the Konya Region", Oriental Art, Vol.XXIII, No 1, 1976) Since then a number of examples have come to light and have been dated between the 16th and 19th centuries.

The closest comparison of all to the present runner is provided by an example sold recently at Sotheby's, Olympia (16 October 2002, lot 45). The present rug has identical main features, but the meadllions are more rounded here and do not give the impression of being squashed within the borders. All the motifs are also drawn in a clearly more rounded, less angular, way in this example; the trefoil border demonstrates this very clearly. The present rug also has small flowerheads scattered within the field which are lacking in the other. A similar small single medallion rug was exhibited by Franz Sailer (Hali 89, p.149, exhibition review). That example has almost identical drawing in the field, but a completely different border design. Other related examples are listed in the note to the Sotheby lot and in the sale review (Hali 126, p.132).

The present lot does not have the ivory angular floral meander border which appears on many of the other examples, not does it have the floral designs filling the field as well as the medallions. Building up a developmental chronology of the different designs within the general group is however difficult. While the design of the present example is for example less complex than that formerly in the Bernheimer Collection, sold in these Rooms, 17 October 1996, lot 419, the colouring is very similar indeed, notably with the orange/brown field/design contrast. The yellow and manganese tones seen here, absent in the Bernheimer piece, are to be found in the example with Eberhart Herrmann (Seltene Orientteppiche X, Munich, 1988, no.11, pp.34-5), and the similar runner in the Textile Museum (McCoy Jones, R. and Yohe, Ralph S.: Turkish Rugs, Washington D.C., 1968, no.43, dated there to the 19th century).


image source: www.rugtracker.com, John Taylor