Mughal Rugs: pashmina millefleur prayer rug late 18th C. Sotheby's Lot 84 Oriental Rugs

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Sotheby's Auctions » Carpets » lot 84

Sale N07919
A MUGHAL MILLEFLEURS PASHMINA PRAYER RUG, KASHMIR, NORTH INDIA
New York 200,000—300,000 USD Session 1
19 Sep 03 10:15 AM
MEASUREMENTS: approximately 5ft. 9in. by 3ft. 11in. (1.75 by 1.19m.)
DATE OF OBJECT: late 18th century

TECHNICAL ANALYSIS

Warp: cotton, Z4S, natural ivory, alternate warps depressed
Weft: cotton, Z2S, 3 shoots, blue
Pile: pashmina wool, Z3-5S, asymmetrical knot open to the left
Density: 18-22 horizontal, 15-18 vertical
Sides: 4 warps wrapped in red wool beneath later burgundy wool overcast
Ends: upper: ½ in. natural ivory and blue banded kilim; lower: 1/10 in. remnant of blue kilim
Colors: cherry red, rose, yellow, blue-green, light blue, dark blue, buff, brown, ivory, charcoal

CATALOGUE NOTE

Previously unpublished, this rug is the tenth known Mughal pashmina prayer rug of millefleurs design. Please refer to Eberhart Herrmann, Seltene Orientteppiche, IX, Munich, 1987, p. 8 for a listing of the rugs and their publications. Finely woven and employing luxuriously soft pashmina wool in an extremely intricate design, these rugs were expensive to make and therefore available to only the most wealthy clientele. These rugs have continued to be revered by collectors over time with illustrious provenances such as George W. Vanderbilt and Joseph V. McMullan. One rug has passed through three prestigious collections, those of Henry G. Marquand, V. and L. Benguiat and the Kevorkian Foundation.

As in the rug offered here, these ten rugs are woven with pashmina wool pile and share the basic design of a hillock with a flowering vase issuing densely flowering vines beneath an arch supported by stylized cypress trees within a complementary floral border. Six of the ten are in museum collections: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Art Institute of Chicago; The Musée Historique des Tissus, Lyon; The Fogg Art Museum, Harvard; and the Biltmore, Asheville, North Carolina (two examples.) Two are in private collections: the Douglass/Herrmann/Ritman yellow ground rug, sold in these rooms April 12, 1996 lot 78 and the Marquand/Benguiat/Kevorkian rug; and the whereabouts of the remaining rug is currently unknown.

Of the millefleurs prayer rugs, three others share the rich deep blue ground, yellow surround and cherry red border with the present example; the Marquand/Benguiat/Kevorkian rug and the two rugs from the Vanderbilt collection now at the Biltmore. The curving vine and shrub border of the present rug is shared exclusively with the Art Institute of Chicago example. The angular stepped arch and square niches within the spandrels in this rug are unique among the group. Each of these rugs have similar small design differences; however, they all share pashmina pile, a particularly Indian color palette and identical ivory guard stripes. These guard borders are also found on larger Mughal millefleurs carpets such as the Vanderbilt Lattice carpet sold at Christie's New York, April 10, 1995, lot 100.

The dating of this group of rugs has been the subject of speculation with attributions ranging from the late 17th to the mid-19th century. The floral design, colors and use of pashmina wool are a continuum within the Mughal weaving tradition of rugs such as the Frick Collection carpets or the Thyssen-Bornemisza and Paravicini prayer rugs, all dated to the 17th century, see Daniel Walker, Flowers Underfoot, New York, 1997, figs. 88, 92, 96, 98. The density and stylization of blossoms is these millefleurs prayer rugs is very different from the 17th century weavings and may reflect the influence of Kashmir shawl designs of the 18th century, see Steven Cohen, "Ten Thousand at a Glance," Hali, issue 88, pp. 74-77. It seems highly likely that these rugs were woven contemporaneously with the shawls as Daniel Walker, op.cit., p. 129, notes that with the decline of Lahore at the end of the 17th century, Kashmir is generally accepted as the origin of these pashmina millefleurs rugs

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