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A LARGE MEDALLION USHAK CARPET WEST ANATOLIA, LATE 16TH/EARLY 17TH CENTURY Even overall wear, localised corrosion, scattered repiling, sides and ends restored 18ft.9in. x 10ft.2in. (577cm. x 311cm.)
The earliest and best examples of these carpets were woven for the wealthy Ottoman home market, however their depiction in some European paintings during the sixteenth century by artists such as Velasquez, Zurbaran and Vermeer illustrates their wider appeal (Donald King and David Sylvester, The Eastern Carpet in the Western World from the 15th to the 17th Century, London, 1983, p.73). By the 17th century there is evidence of a substantial export market in Europe, both from textual sources and from the number of carpets which have survived in Italian, Spanish and Portugese churches and large European country houses.
The basic design principle of 'medallion' Ushak carpets comprises a repeating design influenced by Persian manuscript illuminations and Safavid medallion carpets. The primary colour schemes display either a large indigo ogival medallion on a red ground or the other reversed, flanked by partial radiating medallions all filled with split-leaf rumi and angular floral vinery. The drawing of the present rug is particularly fine and concise and the range of colours excellent. Alongside the usual two contrasting blue tones, and the forest-green detailing, an additional pale rose-pink dye is used to accentuate the lace-like trefoil tracery that edges the central medallion which is found in a small number of the better Ushak carpets of the sixteenth century.
The combination of these colours and design elements link this carpet to others made in the second half of the sixteenth century, most notably one formerly in the Aita collection, (Christie's, London, 18 October 2001, lot 210). A little shorter in length, it features a very rare border design and a slightly varied colour palette to our carpet, but the proportions and drawing of the medallions within the field is very close. The treatment of the red quatrefoil centre of the indigo medallion on the present carpet is extremely similar to a carpet sold Christie's London 26 October 2017, lot 307. Both carpets employ the same level of sophisticated treatment which sees a playful balance of diagonally opposing colours within each of the trefoil palmettes creating a two dimensional chiaroscuro. A further comparable example, which was un-illustrated at the time, sold at Sotheby's, London, 9 October 1991, lot 170, but was reproduced in Hali, Issue 60, December 1991, p.155.
This same elaborate play of colour can be found on some of the truly great 16th century large medallion Ushak carpets, such as the Chevalier carpet in the Musée du Louvre, Paris; the Castellani-Stroganoff Ushak in the Bruschettini collection, Genoa; and the Czartoryski-Altunian Ushak carpet, formerly in the Wher collection, Switzerland, (Carlo Suriano, "Oak leaves and Arabesques", Hali, Issue 116, May-June 2001, fig.3, 4 & 8).
