Seen on: www.Sothebys.com
Sotheby's Auctions » Carpets » lot 332
Provenance The Collection of Susan and Lewis Manilow:
Sotheby's New York, April 7th 1992, lot 10. The
coupled-column prayer rug featured here is one of the
rare group which share a similar design of three
elongated niches supported by coupled-columns with
curling leaf-filled arches surmounted by a
"tulip"-filled reserve. The majority of the
group also shares the strong red field and floral-filled
rounded cartouche border as seen in the present rug, see:
Prayer Rugs, Textile Museum, Washington, D. C., 1974, pp.
54-55, plate XII for an example from the G. H. Myers
collection and Bailey, Julia, "Ladik Prayer
Rugs", Hali Issue 28, 1985, p. 22, fig. 6 for an
example from the Wher Collection. The coupled-column
prayer rug group represents provincial Anatolian
interpretations of 16th and 17th century Ottoman Court
prayer rugs with triple-niche and coupled-column designs,
such as the renowned Ballard prayer rug now in the
Metropolitan Museum of Art (see Dimand, M. S., and
Mailey, Jean, Oriental Rugs in the Metropolitan Museum of
Art, New York, 1973, p. 158, fig. 188.) Although
previously thought to be of Ladik production, May
Beattie, in her 1968 article "Coupled-Column Prayer
Rugs," Oriental Art, Vol. XIV, no. 4, pp. 243-258,
convincingly identifies separate sources of origin for
the coupled-column group and the Ladik rugs because of
different structural characteristics. It is generally now
agreed that the coupled-column group are products of
Western Anatolian looms, most likely those of Oushak. The coupled-column
group is dated to at least the early 17th century by
their appearance in European paintings, with an example
depicted in a 1664 still-life by the Dutch artist
Nicolaas van Gelder (see Bailey, op. cit., pp. 24-25,
fig. 8). Although the present rug shares the basic design
scheme and coloration of most rugs in the coupled-column
group, it has several salient design features which
distinguish it from the other examples. In most of these
rugs the three field niches terminate in a single point
and are of nearly equal proportion, with the central
niche being slightly taller. Here the central niche is
significantly larger than the two side niches. The side
niches are extremely unusual in that they terminate in
three points. There are seemingly only two other
published examples with three-pointed side niches; one in
the Bardini Museum, Florence (see Boralevi, Alberto,
Oriental Geometries, Stefano Bardini and the Antique
Carpet, Livorno, 1999, pl. 25, and the other in the
Museum for Applied Arts, Budapest (see Batari, Ferenc,
"Turkish Rugs in Hungary," Hali, Vol. 3, no. 2,
1980, pp. 88, fig. 9). The present rug and the Bardini
rug, however, are the most similar in overall design
composition even though the Bardini rug has a yellow
ground. They share very similar major border systems and
similar drawing and motifs in the arch and frieze
decoration. Alberto Boralevi suggests that the three
pointed side niches indicate that these rugs are perhaps
the earliest of the coupled-column group and may
"represent a transition between the curvilinear,
naturalistic style of the Ottoman rugs and the more
geometric pattern of the later Anatolian pieces"
(see Boralevi, A., "Turkish Rugs in the Bardini
Museum", Hali, Vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 6-7). Another
extremely unusual and perhaps unique design feature of
the rug offered here is the pointed niche which is
superimposed on the "tulip" frieze and upper
border. There are no apparent design precedents or
correlations for this motif in either the earlier Ottoman
Court prayer rugs or in other rugs of the Anatolian
coupled-column group. However, this niche may represent a
provincial rendering of the four "heavenly
pavilions" found in the corresponding frieze of the
Ballard Ottoman Court rug (see Atil, Esin, The Age of
Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent, Washington and New York,
1987, p. 227) or more likely a provincial rendering of
the four pavilions surmounted by a dome design seen in an
Ottoman Cairene Court rug in a private collection (see
Boralevi, Alberto, "Three Egyptian Carpets in
Italy," Oriental Carpets and Textile Studies II,
London, 1986, p. 215. fig. 11). For Further Reading: Thanks and best wishes, J. Barry O'Connell Jr. |
Site SearchSite Map |
|||||||
