Oriental Rugs, Antique and Modern

by W. A. Hawley

Plate 21. Portrait of Georg Gyze by Hans Holbein, Showing a Holbein Rug With Cufic Border

These rugs claim the attention not only because they have borders of such interesting origin, but by the fact that the age when they were woven is ascertainable. As Holbein lived between the years 1497 and 1543, and some other rugs of this type appear in the works of early Flemish and Italian painters, it may reasonably be assumed that some of them were made before the end of the XV Century.

A very excellent example of this class, owned by Mr. C. F. Williams, is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It has a length of about five feet with a breadth of three and a half. The ground colour of the field is an olive green and that of the main stripe of the border is red. The prevailing colours of the designs, which are entirely geometric, are blue, green, and ivory. All of these rugs are small or of moderate size, and are slightly oblong. Some of them have a ground colour of green; and yellow is frequently found in the pattern. The weaving is rather loose; and compared with Persian rugs they have fewer knots to the square inch.

Another carpet from Asia Minor that also belongs to Mr. C. F. Williams appears in Plate [22], opp. Page 94. It is the only entire rug with this pattern that is known, though a piece of a similar rug is in the Victoria and Albert Museum at London. On fields of blue and red are outlined three large four-pointed stars separated by smaller diamonds. Within these figures and in the surrounding field is a network of tracery supporting conventionalised leaf and floral forms. Between the field and the main stripe of the narrow border is a close co-ordination of pattern, but the simple ribbon of the inner guard seems alien. It appears without modification in many later Asia Minor and Caucasian rugs.

An important feature are the double knots at the corners of the stars, since they are identical with designs found in a manuscript made for one of the Shahs in 1435, and thus assist to determine the age of the rug. For this reason and on account of its general character, it seems not unreasonable to place it as early as the middle of the XV Century.

Similar carpets were woven during a long period, and it is probable that in the latter half of the following century they were largely influenced by the weavers that Solyman the Magnificent, after capturing Tabriz in 1534, transported to his own country. The same general features still remained, but the detail was more elaborate and ornate. Arabesques, palmettes, and floral forms, both of field and border, resembled more nearly the Iranian character. But at a later period, after the beginning of the general decadence to which every industry and art were subject, the patterns became much simpler, and the colours were reduced almost exclusively to red and blue with a little green. At length, both pattern and colours assumed the type of modern Oushaks, that by a slow process of devolution originated from these antique pieces.

In Armenia and Asia Minor it is probable that weaving existed before the Christian era, and that the earliest carpets which remain, though affected by more eastern influences, are largely the product of an indigenous art. But in India it was otherwise. It is true that Sir George Birdwood is authority for the statement that the Saracens introduced carpet-weaving there; but it is most probable that at the time of the invasion of the armies of Tamerlane and during the lives of many of his successors, whatever carpets were woven were very crude. Even when the Moguls began to build and embellish palaces, they obtained their carpets from Persia. But at length Shah Akbar established manufacturies at Lahore about the year 1580, and invited Persian weavers to settle there. From them the native workmen acquired much of their knowledge of patterns and technique.

It was during the reign of Shah Jahan (1628-1658), builder of the famous peacock throne and Taj Mahal, that most of the choicest pieces that now remain were woven. In delicacy of texture they rival those of any other country, and it is not unusual to find pieces with nearly eight hundred knots to the square inch; moreover, all their designs are depicted with remarkable clearness of definition. One of the most noted of these carpets is the woollen piece, about eight yards long by two and a half wide, that was made at the royal factory at Lahore and presented to the Girdlers Company of London in 1634. The mingling of leaf and floral forms, as well as the Herati designs of rosette and crumpled leaf, on a field of red, shows unmistakably its relation to Persian carpets. At the same period were woven large numbers of others with fields covered with an imposing display of superbly drawn flowers, of which every part from root to leaf tips was represented with astonishing realism. Another class included the animal or hunting carpets, which unlike their Persian prototypes seem intended not so much to portray symbolically some historic event or abstract idea, as to convey a correct impression of an actual event.