AN AXMINSTER CARPET, ENGLAND

Sotheby’s London, 22 November 2006, lot 252

The carpet manufactory at Axminster was founded by Thomas Whitty, originally a cloth weaver, in 1755. Carpets were made at Axminster until 1835, when having suffered a disastrous fire, the factory was closed and the weavers and equipment were transferred to Wilton, where hand-knotted carpets continued to be woven. Axminster carpets graced many of the finest English country houses of the second half of the 18^th century and early 19^th century; some were woven for specific rooms to designs by Robert Adam and James Wyatt, amongst others, or supplied as a part of decorative schemes by, for example, Chippendale or Crace for their fashion-conscious clientele. Thomas Whitty I was a botanist and many of the carpets produced at Axminster in the 18^th century amply demonstrate his love of flowers, with their realistic depictions of them in baskets, swags and sprays; his son Thomas Whitty II (d.1799) continued this tradition. In the present lot a rich array of garden flowers is combined with acanthus scrolls, all centred by a small ‘rose moresque’, a device popularised by the 18^th century carpets of the Savonnerie, whose products Axminster also looked to for inspiration, in their commitment to weaving the most desirable carpets of their day.