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31
Northwestern Iran
Garden Carpet Fragment , 17th century
This is one of four existing fragments of a carpet
that would have been nearly 18 feet long and
seven feet wide, with an overall pattern of
lobed stars and crosses (two stars
across its width and six along its
length), surrounded by a single red floral
border that partially remains. Its layout
differs from that of the typical classical garden
carpet, which has a series of rectangular plots
separated by channels and pools of water - the
plan of the formal Persian garden, or chaharbagh. But the vivid array of plants that usually
fills garden rugs is all here, and includes a slender, green
cypress in the center star, a date palm
with its segmented trunk partially visible in the
top star, and many species of flowering trees and
shrubs. A tiny water channel feeds a pool beneath
the cypress. This fragment is
closely related in its drawing to a number of 17th-century rugs -
some with a standard garden layout and
others with overall trees and flowers -
that are now thought to have been made in
the southeastern Iranian city of
Kerman.1
The structure of this fragment,
however, is like that of other rugs from northwestern Iran.
Since carpets like this one - probably made to order for court
officials and other wealthy clients - were
woven from predrawn and portable cartoons,
it is not surprising that similar designs
were produced in several weaving areas of
the Safavid empire.
J.B.
1. These are members of the
"vase"-technique group, named after the flower vases they sometimes
depict.
Provenance: All four fragments
were formerly in the collection of Robert von Hirsch. The others are
now in the Wher Collection, Switzerland; the Keir Collection, Ham,
England; and the Christopher Alexander Collection, Berkeley,
California.
Published: Michael Frances, et
al., lltappeto orientate dal XV al XVIII secolo, Milan,
Eskenazi, 1982, pl. 24, pp. 43-44. One of the other three fragments
is published in color and described in Gilles, et al., pp. 154-155.
Another is in B.W. Robinson, et al., Islamic Art in the Keir
Collection, London and Boston, Faber and Faber, 1988, no. 28,
pp. 78-79.
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| SIZE:
81 x 35 in. (236.2 x 88.9 cm.) |
| WARP:
cotton, Z6S,
depressed; white |
| WEFT: wool,
Z x 2; red |
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PILE: wool, Z2, asymmetrical knots open left,
h. 11, v. 11, 121 k/sq. in.; ivory, brown-black, red,
yellow-gold, green, blue-green, dark blue, blue, light blue,dark purple |
| ENDS: missing |
| SIDES: missing |
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