AN ISFAHAN CARPET

The present carpet belongs to the 'golden age' of Persian carpet weaving that occurred in the Safavid era. Under the reign of Shah 'Abbas (1587-1629), the large gallery carpets remain some of the most highly sought-after of all classical carpets. Charles Grant Ellis refers to the current lot as;

'......an end detail of a thirty-foot carpet of this type has been published in which the intervals between the quatrefoils hold palmettes while at one level two green flowering vases appear in a strange form that has been borrowed from a different class of Indo-Persian carpets'

The closest parallel to the present lot is a pair of arabesque carpets in the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon, Inv. Nos. 68 and 48, both of which display the same arabesque and palmette field design with similar border. The present carpet has, at some stage, been reduced in length however it is illustrated in its complete original form in Achdjian (op.cit.). A related 17th century Herat carpet, very close in design to the present lot but with the absence of the flowering vases in the field, sold in Christie's London, 14 April 1976, lot 25. The grandiose scale of drawing and the still fresh colours of this carpet is certainly extraordinary and was perhaps best summed up nearly seventy years ago by Albert Achdjian (op.cit.); "........Velvety ensemble - the harmonious blending of colours is both delicate and beautiful and extremely poetic".