OTTOMAN CARPETS WITH CHINTAMANI MOTIF
|
|
|
Ushak carpet, West Anatolia, 16th century; 1.03 X 1.08m (3' 5" X 6' 10").
Cathedral of St. Catherine, Sion, Switzerland This rug. which is missing a border, has an untypical field design. (undoubtedly the largest group of Turkish carpets woven between the 15th and late 17th century are those attributed to the workshops of the Ushak region. Many hundreds of examples of the best known patterns have survived, and were often copied in other regions. Occasional examples with less familiar field designs are nevertheless attributable to the Ushak workshops through minor features such as border design, weave and colour. We believe this design to be particularly rare, with few known related examples extant. An example, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York,, has a similar but more geometric small repeating field design, woven in two main colours and two secondary ones, and a similar primary border to that in the Sion carpet. This particular border design first appears on carpets of the second half of the 16th century, and is more frequently found on those examples with the Star Ushak design. |
|
|
