Plate 22. Oushak Carpet
Loaned by C. F. Williams, Esq., to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
One of these, a woollen piece with a length of eight and a quarter feet and a breadth of five and a quarter, is in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The inspiration was from some old Persian piece, but the rendering is peculiarly Indian. In this representation of an Oriental jungle is a strange mingling of the real and unreal. The struggle of a monster bird with a winged beast, half lion, half elephant, and the demoniac faces of the border suggest the inspiration of early pagan mythology; but the movements of the running gazelles and the stealthily creeping tiger, the attitude of the driver of the cart and his attendant, are most natural. The drawing as a whole is exceedingly delicate. The ground colour of the field is the red of most Ispahans and Herats of this period, but the border is a cream colour, a combination not in accord with Persian tradition. The other colours are fawn, blue, pink, grey and brown. It is probably the only Indian hunting carpet of its kind.
Few strictly antique carpets from other countries of the Orient are known. Of the innumerable pieces that were surely woven in Caucasia and Western Turkestan before the end of the XVII Century, scarcely a vestige can be found. Nor are there many from the looms of Syria, though in the days of the Caliphs every mosque was adorned with magnificent carpets. It is true a few sterling pieces of Saracenic character, that have been ascribed to the region about Damascus, still exist. There are also a few rare and beautiful pieces that have come to light in China.[15] But of the countless thousands that in almost every country of the Orient once covered floors of palaces and mosques, representing one of the most refined arts, now nearly lost, only an insignificant fraction remains.
CHART INDICATING PERIODS WHEN ANTIQUE CARPETS WERE MADE
