A 'STAR' OUSHAK CARPET, WEST ANATOLIA

The Property of a Private Florentine Collector, sold Christies, London, 8 April 2014, lot 50

A very rare ‘Star’ Oushak carpet; of around 150 examples known of this group, this is the only complete carpet currently recorded which has a blue field; the only other comparable piece is a fragment in the Vakiflar Museum, Istanbul.  

Rugs and carpets from the city of Oushak in Western Anatolia were some of the most prized oriental weavings among the European elite, from the early sixteenth to the eighteenth century; the products of Oushak formed the largest element of oriental carpet collections in Europe and were admired for both their beauty and their exotic nature, becoming symbols of wealth and status. Oushak carpets and rugs often also appeared in the works of the most distinguished artists of the time, such as Lorenzo Lotto and Carlo Crivelli, who have subsequently lent their names to various of the indigenous Anatolian patterns (see lot 116 in this sale for an exceptionally large ‘Lotto’ carpet). The earliest depiction of a ‘Star’ Oushak rug in a European painting is that seen laid beneath the throne of the Venetian Doge in Paris Bordone's 1534 painting Fisherman Presenting a Ring to the Doge Gradenigo in the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice; the rug depicted is of narrow format with eight-lobed medallion, similar to that seen in the lot offered here. They were prized in England too: King Henry VIII (r.1509-1547) is depicted standing on a ‘Star’ Ushak carpet in paintings by Hans Holbein and Hans Eworth, see 'Portraits of King Henry VIII', Hali, Vol.3 no.3, pp.176-181. In the inventory of property taken on Henry’s death in 1547, there were 801 carpets distributed across his twelve palaces and the garderobes of his three children, Mary, Elizabeth and Edward; the majority of these are described as “of turquey-making”. Carpets at that time were mainly used to decorate tables, other furniture and as wall hangings, generally being considered too precious to use on the floor. They continued to be sought after throughout the 16^th century, to the extent that even European copies were produced: three examples from the 1580’s from the collections of the Dukes of Buccleuch are still in situ at Boughton House. 

Written records indicate that carpets and rugs were woven in Oushak as early as the late fifteenth century. Their weavings were produced with many different patterns arranged on the principle of the endless repeat, but few were as complex in their arrangement of motifs as 'Star' Oushak carpets, most of which are of moderate dimensions, with those over 4 metres (13ft) being rarer. It is probable that the development of the Star’ Oushak motifs and overall design is related to other design output from the court workshops (nakkashane) and contemporary development in mosque decoration, particularly tilework, see Thompson, J., 'Carpets in the Fifteenth Century', Carpets and Textiles in the Iranian World 1400-1700, Oxford, 2010, pp. 31-57 and Aslanapa, O., One Thousand Years of Turkish Carpets, Istanbul, 1988, Chp. V, pp. 103-123, “16^th & 17^th century classical Turkish carpets (Uşak carpets), Star Uşak carpets”, pp. 107-113.  

As surviving pieces and written accounts suggest, 'Star' Oushak carpets were not produced after the seventeenth century, but during their production period the designs remained consistent, with variations achieved through different framing of the endless-repeat design, and differing borders, and almost uniquely, through reversing the colour scheme. Their discontinuation may have been partly because of changing taste in Europe, as carpets became fashionable for flooring: large carpets suitable as floor coverings were arriving from India and Persia; the large ‘Medallion’ Oushaks were easier to execute on enlarged scale and they became the dominant design of Ottoman export carpets.  

There are a number of star designs that make up the broader ‘Star’ Oushak category, of which the eight-lobed medallion type seen here is the most frequently encountered. Pinner, R., and Franses, M., ‘The ‘Classical’ Carpets of the 15^th to 17^th Centuries’, Hali, Vol.6 , No. 4, Winter 1984, classified the various types in their survey of the Victoria & Albert Museum’s Turkish carpet collection, see pp. 365-369. As the previous cataloguer of this lot pointed out, Michael Franses illustrated a related ‘Star’ Oushak in Hali, Issue 110, May-June 2000, p. 94, (The Textile Gallery, advertisement) of which the layout and scale closely parallels that of the lot offered here; it is framed by a similarly narrow border, although of different design to that seen here. Comparing the two enables one to see the impact of the alterations in the standard colour scheme. Notable in the present lot is the use of one colour for the body of the medallion (red), and another (dark blue) for the infill in the yellow tracery (a schema reminiscent of that seen in ‘Lotto’ carpets, see lot 116 in this sale). The medallions are outlined in dark, now oxidised brown, which throws them into relief against the pale blue ground, whereas in the normal colouring seen in the Franses piece for example, medallions and field appear to sit in the same plane. As noted, the only other known instance of the ‘Star’ design on a blue ground is a fragment in the Vakiflar Museum, illustrated in Balpinar, B., and Hirsch, U., Carpets of the Vakiflar Museum Istanbul, Wesel, 1988, pl. 40, pp. 256-257.

The border design is a zig-zag vine bearing alternately paired yellow with blue, and yellow with red scrolled leaf forms. A possible common Turkic influence for the curled leaf border design has been suggested in previous cataloguing.

Related borders to that seen in the present lot are seen in the triple 'Star medallion' piece in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. no. 08.235, formerly in the collection of Wilhelm von Bode, see Dimand, M.S., and Mailey, Jean, Oriental Rugs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, cat. 73, p. 221, (single colour paired leaves in red, blue or yellow); an early 16th century example from the Transylvanian Lutheran church of Bistrita illustrated in Ionescu, S., Antique Ottoman Rugs in Transylvania, Rome, 2005, cat. 9, p. 84 and the fragmentary rug in the Vakiflar Museum, Carpets of the Vakiflar Museum Istanbul, ibid.  With only small restorations, this carpet is generally in exceptional condition for its age and a quite remarkable survivor of extraordinary rarity.