Dragon carpet, 16th century, Safavid Period, Azerbaijan. Private Collection, Genoa, Italy. published Serare Yetkin's "Early Caucasian carpets in Turkey", plate 122. 213 x 457 cm

This carpet from a collection in Genoa has a smaller field with fewer lozenges; furthermore there are now two dragons instead of four across the field. While their alignment is unchanged, they are positioned differently on the carpet and are decorated with coloured dots and small flowers. Also different is the direction of the running animals with heads turned back; they are placed so as to emphasize the dragon-and-phoenix combat which now forms the primary motif. However, the naturalistic birds in the first row of lozenges are almost identical with those in the Graf carpet and another point of similarity is in the honeycomb-shaped tree. The border is of the same design in all these carpets.