Sotheby's Carpets and Textiles from Distinguished Collections
New York | 31 Jan 2014, 10:00 AM | N09104

LOT 56
PROPERTY OF AN ASIAN PRIVATE COLLECTOR
AN EAGLE KAZAK RUG, SOUTHWEST CAUCASUS
approximately 5ft. 10in. by 4ft. 9in. (1.78 by 1.45m.)
circa 1800

ESTIMATE 80,000-120,000 USD

SOLD: 233 000 USD

PROVENANCE: The Bortz Collection (formerly Herrmann), Sotheby's London, May 29, 1998, lot 13

EXHIBITED
Dragons with Red Tails, Mountain Looms Gallery, Singapore, April 28 - May 21, 2000, reviewed Hali, issue 112, p.141

LITERATURE
Eberhart Herrmann, Seltene Orientteppiche, Vol. IV, Munich, 1982, No.44, pp. 146-7.
Hali,Vol. 5, No.2, 1982, p.208, No.7.
Ben J. Fernandes, A Weaver's Ode to Joy, Singapore, 1998, "The Herrmann Rug"

CATALOGUE NOTE
This rug is one of a small corpus of seven known related weavings.

The others are:

1) that formerly in the James Burns Collection, see James Burns, The Caucasus: Traditions in Weaving, Seattle, 1987, pl. 10 and on the cover of Hali,
Issue 36;

2) an example in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (T264-1927), see Hali, Vol. 3, No. 2, p. 99, fig. 7;

3) one in the National Gallery of Prague, see Hali, Issue 149, p. 99;

4) the Richardson rug, see Julia Bailey, Through the Collector's Eye: Oriental Rugs from New England Private Collections, Rhode Island, 1991, p. 18, fig. 4;

5) the Liambei rug, see Hali, Issue 167, p. 157;

6) and one sold Christie's London, October 8, 2013, lot 24. (blue ground Herrmann Sunburst Adler Kazak rug)

A fragmentary rug related to the group, but without the central sunburst medallion, also on a blue ground, is illustrated David Sylvester, et. al., Il
Tappeto Orientale dal XV al XVIII Secolo, Milan, 1982, pl. 19. The closest example to the present lot is the Burns rug,
dated by Burns to the mid-eighteenth century. These two rugs share similar minor and major borders and a
field design, which includes complete pendant palmette motifs supporting the main medallion, flanked by large hooked
leaves and plants. The V&A rug also has a very similar field composition, but has the same main border as the blueground
rug sold by Christie's London in 2013. The drawing in the latter example was assigned to the late
eighteenth/early nineteenth century and is the most static in the group. One palmette is truncated, suggesting this
latter rug is the youngest of the cited pieces. The design of these rugs is clearly a development of the eighteenth
century Caucasian 'floral' carpets, themselves descended from seventeenth century Safavid prototypes, but this small
group of rugs shows the only physical evidence for the transition of design between the large carpets of the 1700s and
the ubiquitous Eagle Kazak rugs of the nineteenth century. The example offered here is outstanding for its condition,
high quality of the wool, and broad range of rich colors.