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A Safavid carpet, Tabriz, 16-17th centuries


Price Realized £5,288 ($7,588)
 

Sale Information
Christie's SALE 6435 —
ORIENTAL RUGS AND CARPETS
3 May 2001
London, King Street

 

Lot Description
A TABRIZ MEDALLION CARPET FRAGMENT
North West Iran, 16th Century
The burgundy field with an overall lattice formed of angular brightly coloured interlaced spiralling tendrils issuing palmettes, split palmettes and floral motifs, corroded black, some areas of wear, very slight repairs
6ft.8in. x 3ft.9in. (204cm. x 114cm.)

 

Lot Notes
In the second half of the sixteenth century medallion carpets following the model of that offered as lot 150 in this sale continued to be made, but with certain changes of scale. Tabriz by this stage was no longer the capital; that had moved to Qazvin in 1548 as a result of the frequent Turkish incursions into North West Persia. The court style had also changed; Timurid influence is far less visible in painting of the period. The carpets made in this period in Tabriz reflect this, lacking the monumentality of conception of the early examples, and often becoming far more intimate in scale. The present lot is the field from just such a carpet. It relates closely to examples such as that in the Berlin Museum (Erdmann, Kurt: Seven Hundred Years of Oriental Carpets, London, 1970, fig.155, p.128). Another similar example in Berlin even does away with the medallion, thereby having a field hardly larger than that of the present rug set within a cartouche and roundel border (Sarre, Friedrich, and Trenkwald, Herrmann: Alt-Orientalische Teppiche, Vienna and Leipzig, 1928, vol.II, pl.11). The pile on this example is well preserved with minimal restoration, showing an intensity of colour, particularly noticeable in the diagonal colour symmetries of the minor motifs.