10

Central Anatolia, possibly Ladik

Coupled-Column Prayer Rug, 18th or 19th century

Prayer rugs with this triple-arch design were woven in Turkey as a cottage industry in the 17th century; many were exported to Europe and are depicted in Dutch paintings of the period. They owe their architectural scheme to graceful rugs made for the 16th-century Ottoman court,¹  but because the later coupled-column rugs, unlike their Ottoman predecessors, were not woven from cartoons, their architectural and Horal elements became angular and stylized.² Later generations of Turkish village weavers continued to create variants of the paired-column design. Although this rug is smaller and more elongated than its 17th century ancestors, it nevertheless preserves their bold color and design remarkably well, despite the fact that its columns and arches have become precariously slender. Unlike the older coupled-column rugs, this prayer rug has a compact, ribbed weave and aubergine color common to rugs made in Ladik, although its blue weft and small proportions are not typical of that village.

J.B.

1. See the Ballard Ottoman prayer rug (20.100.51) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, reproduced in Richard Ettinghausen, et al. Prayer Rugs, Washington, The Textile Museum, 1974, pl. I.

2. See the essay, "Early Rug Collectors of New England," in this catalogue, fig. 3, p. 17. Also exemplified by the Textile Museum's R 32.22.1, reproduced in Ettinghausen, et al., cover and pl. XII.

Published: Ladislav Cselenyi, Oriental Rugs from the Collection of Mr. John Schorscher, Toronto, Royal Ontario Museum, 1972, cat. no. 11. Eberhart Herrmann, Van Lotto bis Tekke, Munich, Eberhart Herrmann, 1978, no. 5, pp. 7 and 11.