A KASHGAR CARPET, XINJIANG, WEST CHINA

Sotheby’s London, 19 October 1994, Lot 213

Hali 78, December 1994/January 1995, p. 132 

Herrmann, Eberhart, Asiatische Teppich- und Textilkunst, Band 5, Emmetten, 1995, pl. 103

The field design is composed of an implied double grid formed of offset rows of slender white crosses with ‘five-flower’ motifs at their intersections, with each bar terminating in a lotus like motif. The vertical stems support alternately rosettes and nodes issuing stems of blossom which form the horizontals of the second grid; the play between repetition and variation and the tension formed by the grid lines result in a successful and sophisticated design, which is serene but never dull. Comparative examples are a silk carpet illustrated by Ulrich Schűrmann in Central Asian Rugs, Frankfurt Am Main, 1969, pl. 74, and one in Bidder, Hans, Carpets from Eastern Turkestan, London, 964, pl. XVIII. Both these examples employ the ‘five-flower’ design, and the latter has a ‘tile pattern’ border similar to the present lot. Similar ‘five-flower’ rosettes decorate the pale green field of a small East Turkestan rug, reduced in length, published by Christopher Alexander in A Foreshadowing of 21st Century Art, New York 1993, sold Sotheby’s London, 7 November, 2017, lot 42.