A 'BELLINI' DOUBLE RE-ENTRANT RUG, WEST ANATOLIA

Property of an American Collector, Sotheby's New York, September 14, 2001, lot 4

With its central lozenge medallion and keyhole design, this rug belongs to a group of rugs commonly known as ‘Bellini’, Keyhole, or Re-Entrant. This example is from a sub-group of which there are perhaps half a dozen examples, featuring the double keyhole design, and this border of compartmented foliate medallions in white reserved on a red ground enclosing swastika and sauvastika symbols. The moniker ‘Bellini’ is the most commonly used and is after the Italian master Gentile Bellini, who depicted these rugs in for example his late 15th century work ‘Madonna and Child Enthroned’ now in the National Gallery, London (NG3911) and in ‘The Doge Leonardo Loredan with four Nobili’, 1507 in the Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Other artists such as Lorenzo Lotto also depict examples of this group, for example ‘Husband and Wife’, 1523,The Hermitage, St. Petersburg. Johanna Zick, in "Eine Gruppe von Gebetsteppichen und ihre Datierung", Berliner Museen, Berichte aus den ehem. preussischen Kunstsammlunge, n.s., vol.11, pt.1, September 1961, pp.6-14, classified the ‘Bellini’ rugs, and the present example, with double key-hole design, is a Type C based on her sub-groups. For a thorough discussion and the classification of such rugs see Franses, Michael, ‘The Bellini Keyhole’, Kirchheim, Heinrich, ed., Orient Stars, Stuttgart, 1993, pp. 277-283, and Mills, John, ‘Carpets in Paintings: the Bellini, Keyhole or Re-Entrant Rugs’, Hali, Issue 58, pp. 86-103. Rugs related to the present lot include, Sotheby's New York, 14 December 2006, lot 142 (previously Sotheby's London, 21 April 1999, lot 68); Herrmann, Eberhart, Von Uschak bis Yarkand: Seltene Orientteppiche aus vier Jahrhunderten, Munich, 1979, pl. 4; a rug from the collection of Herr Dr. Rudolf Lothar, Berlin, see Werner, Grote-Hasenbalg, Der Orientteppich: Seine Geschichte und seine Kultur, Band II, Berlin, 1922, pl. 18; one from Ezkenazi and an example in the Islamic Museum, Cairo (see https://www.rugtracker.com/2016/06/re-entrant-carpets.html, where two related rugs offered at Skinner’s are also illustrated, although these lack the six white hooked and attenuated octagons in the field common to the half dozen rugs, including the present lot, which are noted as directly comparable.