Carpet with a Geometricized Saz-Leaf Design

This large carpet represents the Transcaucasian weaving tradition with its bold overall design and contrasting rich color palette. Here, a pairs of large geometricized feathery saz leaves are repeated with stylized lotus-like floral motifs, in white, blue, black, violet, green, yellow on a scarlet-red ground. Both the saz and lotus motifs, although highly stylized, relate to the court traditions generated by Ottoman and Safavid workshops. Only a fragment remains from the border that preserves designs in blue, scarlet-red, and yellow on white ground. These visually powerful designs are especially striking on a carpet of this large size. They were preferred by commercial workshops, in which such carpets with a low knot-count were produced in large quantities for trade. Rugs from the broad Transcaucasian region are woven in diverse centers representing a multi-ethnic society in which Armenians, Turkic, Kurdish, Persianate, and other people lived alongside each other. While this diverse society may complicate the attribution to an exact workshop and its cultural identity, it may help to explain the development of a shared repertoire of rich and colorful designs often found in these Transcaucasian rugs. Although the compositions relate to traditions that developed in large workshops in regions between Iran and Turkey, such rugs bear distinct features that are considered artistic hallmarks of the vast and diverse Transcaucasian region.