AN ANIMAL COMBAT CARPET, SOUTHEAST CAUCASUS

Dr. Ulrich Schürmann, Cologne

Prof. Dr Günther Marschall Collection, sold Austria Auction Company, Vienna, 16 September 2014, lot 85

Schürmann, U., Bilderbuch für Teppichsammler, Munich 1960, pl. 38

Schürmann, U., Caucasian Rugs, Munich 1969; Maryland 1990, pp. 254 – 255, pl. 93

Yetkin, S., Early Caucasian Carpets in Turkey, London 1978, fig. 176

Hali, Issue 180, Summer 2014, pp. 3 – 5 (A A C advertisement)

Hali, Issue 182, Winter 2014, p. 150, ‘APG’

A rare and early small-format Caucasian rug with lion and bull combat motifs, based on a Safavid courtly prototype, and formerly in the collections of both Ulrich Schürmann, and Prof. Dr Günther Marschall.

 The closest comparable for the design of the present lot amongst the corpus of early Caucasian weavings is the carpet in The Art Institute, Chicago, Inv. 26.1616, Gift of Emily Crane Chadbourne, illustrated Grant Ellis, C., Early Caucasian Rugs, ‘The Textile Museum Fiftieth Anniversary 1925-1975’, Washington 1975, pl. 25, (539 by 221cm), dated by Ellis, ibid., to the late 17^th or early 18^th century. In the Chicago example there are three and a half offset rows of medallions issuing curled leaves, with ranks of palmettes and animal combats repeating between these rows; the animal combats have their colouring reversed from that seen in this rug,and the ground of the carpet is blue rather than red. The layout of the lot presented here is an extract from this repeating pattern, comprising one complete medallion with curled leaves, the animal combats above and below, and sections of the curled leaves from the preceding and subsequent rows of medallions. The animal combat represented is that between the lion and the bull; the bull’s curved horns are clearly seen. Thompson, J., Milestones in Carpet History. Tabibnia Milan, 2006, p. 191, fig. 171 illustrates a detail from margin drawings in an album made for Amir Husayn Beg, with calligraphy by Malik al-Daylami, dated 1560-61, which shows a lion-bull combat and fig. 169, p.190, ibid., illustrates a detail of a 16^th century Persian carpet with lion-bull combat. In both cases the bull is spotted, whereas in the present carpet, both animals have dotted decoration. Besides the horns and the spots, the lion’s hind leg and padded paw is still clearly recognisable, whilst the cloven hoof of the bull has nearly vanished. Images of the lion-bull combat are known from Babylonian times, when they represented the movement of the constellations Leo and Taurus, later representing the power of royalty and possibly also the universal struggle between good and evil, see Thompson, op.cit., p. 188 for further discussion of the motif. 

In her article on Azerbaijan embroideries, ‘Synthesis of Contrasts’, Hali, Issue 59, October 1991, pp. 102-111, Jennifer Weardon summarised the history of the region and its impact on the production of carpets and textiles in the Shirvan and Karabagh regions of the Caucasus, see ibid., pp. 103 – 104. Periods of conflict were followed by relatively stable years, during which the Iranian Shahs, notably Shah Abbas I (r. 1588-1629) and again in the late 18^th century, Agha Muhammad founder of the Qajar dynasty, made concerted efforts to establish and revive carpet and textile production in the region. Lots 8, 22, 23 and 32 in this sale are examples of this. Two of the Azerbaijan embroideries which Weardon illustrates in her article (ibid., figs. 4 & 5, p. 105) and which she dates to the late 17^th and early 18^th century have central medallions issuing curled leaf-like forms, closely related to the central medallion of the present lot. That illustrated as fig. 5 is clearly a section of a repeating design , of the sort seen in the carpet in The Art Institute, Chicago.

The lion-bull combat referred to early offers a clue to the origin of this specific medallion. In Milestones, op.cit., Thompson, illustrates p. 187, pl. 17, an early Safavid carpet in courtly style, which has a large palmette on the central axis issuing cloudband tails; animals and animal combats abound in the field, including the lion-bull previously mentioned as illustrated in detail as fig 169, p. 190. The crab-like effect that results, and the directional centre of the palmette, paralleled in the rug here, suggests this was the type of rug which provided the original design model for the Caucasian weavings of this design. Other large scale Caucasian carpets exist with variations of this design, often with the combat transmuted into a leafy motif; Ellis, op.cit., p. 80 lists twelve examples of carpets with this characteristic medallion, but the lot offered here appears to be the only extant example of the design on a smaller scale.