Ottoman Court Rug fragment, Egypt or Turkey, 1550-1600. Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 163-1908

Date: 16th century (made)
Museum number: 163-1908
Gallery location: In Storage

Physical description
Turkish, 16th century Ottoman court carpet; fragment; part of field and left-hand border.
WARP: green wool; S4Z; 20 threads per inch (79 per dm); depressed.
WEFT: very light brown (wool?); S spun, unplied; 3 or 4 parallel threads per shoot; 2 shoots after each row of knots; 11 knots per inch (43 per
dm).
PILE: wool; 6 colours: red , yellow, green, blue , very light blue, brown, cream; asymmetrical knot tied around 2 threads and open to the left;
110 knots per sq. inch (1699 per sq. dm).
SIDE FINISH: missing
END FINISH: missing
DESIGN: field: red ground with blue central rosette surrounded by four flowers and four palmettes; this arrangement reappears, in part, in the
present corners of this fragment. Elsewhere there are swirling yellow stems and narrow green leaves in regular curving arabesques, enclosing
further palmettes and rosettes that are predominantly green and bearing small blue flowers and larger blue rosettes.
Main border: left-hand side and lower only. Red ground with a yellow meandering stem along the outer edge from which spring a profusion of
flowers and leaves - blue carnations rising from a green fruit-like motif, alternating with tall, slim yellow tulips with outer blue petals.
Inner border: (as above). Green ground with two rows of off-set and opposing pink flowers, halved. There is evidence of this border along the
upper edge of the field.
Outer border: evidence that it was similar to the inner border.
Museum number: 163-1908
URL: http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O122072/carpet/