This carpet fragment and the others in the group come from a well-known carpet of which the main part is in the Frick Collection, New York. The rich red of the ground would have been achieved with the expensive insect dye called lac, probably combined with the madder plant.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Pashmina Carpet Fragment
Date:first half 17th century
Geography:Attributed to Northern India
Medium:Silk (warp and weft), pashmina wool (pile); asymmetrically knotted pile
Dimensions:Textile: L. 13 1/2 in. (34.3 cm) W. 5 1/4 in. (13.3 cm) Mount: L. 17 7/8 in. (45.4 cm) W. 10 1/8 in. (25.7 cm) D. 7/8 in. (2.2 cm)
Classification:Textiles-Rugs
Credit Line:Rogers Fund, 1908
Accession Number:08.109.20
Pashmina Carpet Fragment
Pashmina is a type of fine wool made from the undercoat of the Himalayan mountain goat. Exquisite carpets woven of this wool in northern India during the seventeenth century were valued highly not only in India but also in Iran. For instance, two examples dating to this period are preserved in the shrine of Imam Riza in Mashhad.[1] In total, about forty pashmina carpets are thought to have survived worldwide, and half of them probably date to the reign of Shah Jahan (1627–58).[2]
This is a fragment of one such luxury carpet. Even in its present form, the delicate, painterly quality of the leaves is apparent. A gradational effect is accomplished by the two tones of blue and green pashmina pile set against the finely woven silk ground, which consists of alternating warp bands of white, off-white, green, and blue. The insect-derived vivid red dye used as a background color makes the piece even more attractive.
The fragment once belonged to a famous carpet now in the Frick Collection in New York, and the complete original design of the work has recently been reconstructed. Once extraordinarily large, the carpet had alternating rows of flowering trees and trees in leaf. Surprisingly, in spite of the repetitive design and symmetrical arrangement, the weavers carefully avoided creating identical details.[3] Considering its quality and the luxurious materials used in its production, the carpet is likely to have been made in one of the Mughal royal workshops.
This magnificent carpet was cut up before 1889. Many pieces were then dispersed, and the present fragment was purchased by the Museum in 1908. In 1918 Henry Clay Frick purchased the Frick piece from the dealer Joseph Duveen. Other fragments are in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Brooklyn Museum; Museum fur Islamische Kunst, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin; and private collections.[4]
Yumiko Kamada in [Ekhtiar, Soucek, Canby, and Haidar 2011]
Footnotes:
1. See Gans-Ruedin,E[rwin]. Indian Carpets. New York, 1984, pp. 130–33; Cohen, Steven and Nobuko Kajitani. Gardens of Eternal Spring: Two Newly Conserved Seventeenth-Century Mughal Carpets in The Frick Collection. The Frick Collection, New York, 2006, p. 15.
2. Flowers Underfoot:Indian Carpets of the Mughal Era. Exhibition, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Catalogue by Daniel Walker. New York, 1997, p. 80.
3. Cohen and Kajitani 2006 (see note 1), pp. 9, 10, 35.
4. Ibid., pp. 9, 11, 15, 19, 26 no. 2.
[ Art market, India, 1880s]; [ Dikran G. Kelekian (American, born Turkey), New York, until 1908; sold to MMA]
Ekhtiar, Maryam, Priscilla P. Soucek, Sheila R. Canby, and Navina Haidar, ed. Masterpieces from the Department of Islamic Art in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1st ed. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2011. no. 263, p. 374, ill. (color).
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