mid-19th century Kuba rug, 163 x 106 cm

Published at Ian Bennett: Oriental Rugs. Volume I: Caucasian Rugs

Despite having been slightly trimmed at top and bottom, this is a most unusual and attractive rug. It is obviously close in concept to the large floral carpets of the late 17th and 18th centuries, a number of which have huge stylised floral medallions (although the yellow and light blue medallions seen lower left and upper right of the present rug are very close to the large palmette medallions of heraldic type seen on so-called Yomut 'Ogurjali' carpets). The main border composition, on its vivid red ground, is also most unusual. The only comparable example known to me is the piece illustrated in McMullan's Islamic Carpets (pl. 65); this has an exceptionally wide white-ground arabesque meander with a wide outer red-ground guard containing a row of highly stylised floral motifs with a single continuous indented 'bracket' line. The main border of the present rug closely resembles the outer guard of the McMullan rug, although the latter has a somewhat mean and narrow lattice composition in the field. There is also a highly fragmented rug with a related floral field composition and a white-ground flower-and-bracket border in the Turk ve Islam Eserleri Museum, Istanbul which Serare Yetkin illustrates (Early Caucasian Carpets in Turkey, vol. I, pl. 58) and describes as 18th century. This has what could be interpreted as an earlier, less stylised, version of the border seen on the present piece, a border which might ultimately have derived from a 16th century Ottoman court carpet design. Probably mid-19th century