Oriental Carpet Design
Commissioned by Lapworth & Riley British
Anonymous, French, 19th century French
Not on view
In 1837 the London manufacturer Lapworth & Riley ordered a set of carpet designs from an agent in Paris. These highly detailed gouache drawings demonstrate how European designers created "Oriental" designs about 1840. This example imaginatively combines ornament from several Islamic sources. The middle band is filled with a meander of stylized, curled, and flattened leaf shapes interspersed with butas (bent-tipped palm leaves) and set against a dark ground; the patterns recall Persian metalwork and ceramics. The floral elements in the outside border are also probably Persian, or possibly Mughal, in origin, but the strapwork at the center of the design relates to Moorish originals. Only after the appearance of such publications as Owen Jones's Grammar of Ornament (1856) and Albert-Charles-Auguste Racinet's L'Ornement polychrome (1869) would European designers begin to distinguish among the various Islamic cultures.
