A number of the several hundred surviving Indo-Persian carpets in collections throughout the world can be traced back to the seventeenth century from their present locations, suggesting the broad commercial appeal they held.(1) The carpets were manufactured from about 1610 or 1615 until early in the eighteenth century. The materials and structural characteristics of the present work are consistent with the six other Indo-Persian rugs in the Robert Lehman Collection (see Nos. 393 – 98) and with the group as a whole. The carpet is a worn but good representative of the first generation of the classical vine scroll and palmette type of Indo-Persian, dating from about 1625 or before. The Indo-Persian group seems to have developed naturally from the earlier Herat class, a term used only for convenience, as its precise origins remain uncertain. Herat carpets, produced mainly during the second half of the sixteenth century, demonstrate the evolution of the vine scroll and palmette pattern favored in the commercial Indo-Persians that followed.(2) The date given here is suggested because particular motifs and color usage are strikingly close to Herat characteristics. Traces of a style popular in black-ink drawing and decorative arts in the second half of the sixteenth century [the so-called saz style(3)] are strongly echoed in the present work in complex floral forms, particularly the palmettes with small blossoms tucked into their leafy folds and the curved, serrated leaves arcing across half-concealed blossoms. A link to the Herat class is also seen in the highlights of bright color, in the use of lots of orange and yellow and light green, and in the fine and beautifully sinuous drawing of the striped cloud bands, which become heavier and less detailed over time. Other first-generation Indo-Persians of comparable type and quality are at the Frick Collection, New York,(4) Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Paris,(5) the Cleveland Museum of Art,(6) and the Cincinnati Art Museum.(7)
Catalogue entry from Daniel Walker. The Robert Collection. Decorative Arts, Volume XV. Wolfram Koeppe, et al. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in association with Princeton University Press, 2012, pp. 374-375.
NOTES: 1. On the large holdings in Portugal, see Carpets and Paintings, Fifteenth – Eighteenth Centuries: The Oriental Carpet in Portugal. Exhibition, Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, 31 July 2007 – 6 January 2008. Catalogue by Jessica Hallett, Teresa Pacheco Pereira, et al. Lisbon, 2007, pp. 45 – 47, 89 – 91, and nos. 25 – 45. On the representation in Netherlandish painting during the seventeenth century, see Ydema, Onno. Carpets and Their Datings in Netherlandish Paintings, 1540 – 1700. Woodbridge, Suffolk, England, 1991, pp. 59 – 65, 154 – 72. 2. The most famous carpet of the Herat type is the so-called Emperor's Carpet, actually a pair of carpets belonging to the Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. See Volker, Angela. Die orientalischen Knüpfteppiche im MAK: Österreichisches Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Wien. Vienna, 2001, no. 80, and Ekhtiar, Maryam D., Priscilla P. Soucek, Sheila R. Canby, and Navina Najat Haidar. Eds. Masterpieces from the Department of Islamic Art in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, no. 81. 3. Denny, Walter B. “Dating Ottoman Turkish Works in the Saz Style.” Muqarnas 1, 1983, pp. 103 – 21. 4. The Frick Collection, New York, 16.10.2 (Dimand, Maurice Sven. “Oriental Rugs: Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.” In The Frick Collection: An Illustrated Catalogue, vol. 8, Enamels, Rugs and Silver, pp. 245 – 79. New York, 1977, pp. 258 – 61). 5. Brunhammer, Yvonne. Tapis d'Orient. Paris, 1957, pl. 6. 6. The Cleveland Museum of Art, 62.263. 7. Cincinnati Art Museum, 1947.625.
[Duveen Brothers (?), New York]. Probably the carpet acquired by Philip Lehman through Duveen Brothers, New York, in December 1920.
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