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Antique Shirvan Medallion & Gubba (Dome) rug with eternal knot motifs in a natural dark brown ground

Code: SHMD02

Age: 1900-1910

Size
: 160x310cm

Size (ft): 5'3"x10'2"

Structure: wool pile, wool warps (natural dark brown and ivory yarns twisted - "salt&pepper") and ivory wool wefts.

Knots: Gördes (Turkish, symmetrical)

Condition: Good condition. Good pile with some low areas. Soft handle.

Design: The natural dark brown abrashed field displays three medallions with flame appendages in the centre of the vertical axis. Innumerable variations of small ornaments like grape leaf lozenges, eternal knot motifs, stars inside the small octagons, small geometrical motifs etc. fill the field. There is a woman figure with her hands on hips in the lower left part of the field. All in a red ground polychrome kufic motif border between flower heads & buds meander and "S" chain minor borders. Note how the weaver changed the "barber pole" stripe to a wider flower meander minor border at the bottom part of the rug.

The serrated/saw-edged medallions/pendants (gubba) have been related by some authors to ancient Egyptian and Persian Royal insignia and symbolize fire/flame.


Gubba motif

The top gubba contains floral rosettes while the bottom gubba has a horizontally placed hyacinth motif.





Kufic main border


The word ‘Kufic’ or ‘Kufi’ refers to an earliest form of Arabic calligraphy and it consists of a modified form of the old Nabataean script. The script was called ‘Kufi’ because it was developed in the end of the 7th century in Kufah, Iraq. It was the main script used to copy Qur'ans until the 11th century. Originally, the script was angular and staccato, but later a floral Kufi was developed, and then several other varieties, including foliated Kufi, knotted Kufi, and square Kufi. Eventually, it seems, the word ‘Kufic’ came to denote any form of ornamentation based on calligraphy—a word art—including both highly decorative scripts and purely geometric, abstract ones.



A carpet with a pseudo-kufic border depicted in a Jalayirid manuscript, XIV century, Tabriz school, From "Kalila wa Dimna"


Kufic type of borders depicted in medieval European paintings:


A rug with a stylized kufic border depicted in this painting of Carlo Crivelli (Annunciation with St Emidius), 1486. Oil on wood transferred to canvas, 207 x 146,5 cm. National Gallery, London



King Henry on a rug with a kufesque border. Hampton Court Palace 1667 by Remigius van Leemput

 


St Jerome in his Study, 1480, Ognissanti, Florence. by Domenico Ghirlandaio


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For more information about the above rug or to place an order please email vd@azerbaijanrugs.com
We will get back to you within 24 hours or less.