The Persian Carpet Tradition

The Persian Carpet Tradition P.R.J. Ford

CONTENTS

6

Map of the Persian Cultural Sphere

186 CHAPTER 9

7

Acknowledgements

Fragments

8

Glossary of Carpet Terms

10 Preface 18 CHAPTER 1

The Traditional Persian Carpet in 1450

32 CHAPTER 2

The Design Revolution

52 CHAPTER 3

The Design Source for the Revolution 66 CHAPTER 4

The Core Group

92 CHAPTER 5

Commercialization 118 CHAPTER 6

The Masterpieces

140 CHAPTER 7

The Wide Dissemination

170 CHAPTER 8

The Last Great Flourish

198 CHAPTER 10

Persian, Turkish and Indian Copies

218 CHAPTER 11

341 Map of Persian

Weaving Districts 342 Footnotes

234 CHAPTER 12

347 Sources of Illustrations

The Kerman Vase Carpet Design 242 CHAPTER 13

The Provincial and Tribal Dimension 268 CHAPTER 14

Village Rugs I: Ferahan, Bijar, Bakhtiar, the Caucasus

296 CHAPTER 15

Village Rugs II: The Net Cast Wide

318 CHAPTER 16

Conclusions Chronology:

A Speculation

4

340 Appendix II:

Missing Carpets

Did Bihzad Design Carpets?

322 CHAPTER 17

2 The sultan and his court, Lahijan 1494

334 Appendix I:

Technical Details

328 CHAPTER 18

A Footnote on Erdmann

344 Works Cited

350 Picture Credits 351 Indices

CONTENTS

6

Map of the Persian Cultural Sphere

186 CHAPTER 9

7

Acknowledgements

Fragments

8

Glossary of Carpet Terms

10 Preface 18 CHAPTER 1

The Traditional Persian Carpet in 1450

32 CHAPTER 2

The Design Revolution

52 CHAPTER 3

The Design Source for the Revolution 66 CHAPTER 4

The Core Group

92 CHAPTER 5

Commercialization 118 CHAPTER 6

The Masterpieces

140 CHAPTER 7

The Wide Dissemination

170 CHAPTER 8

The Last Great Flourish

198 CHAPTER 10

Persian, Turkish and Indian Copies

218 CHAPTER 11

341 Map of Persian

Weaving Districts 342 Footnotes

234 CHAPTER 12

347 Sources of Illustrations

The Kerman Vase Carpet Design 242 CHAPTER 13

The Provincial and Tribal Dimension 268 CHAPTER 14

Village Rugs I: Ferahan, Bijar, Bakhtiar, the Caucasus

296 CHAPTER 15

Village Rugs II: The Net Cast Wide

318 CHAPTER 16

Conclusions Chronology:

A Speculation

4

340 Appendix II:

Missing Carpets

Did Bihzad Design Carpets?

322 CHAPTER 17

2 The sultan and his court, Lahijan 1494

334 Appendix I:

Technical Details

328 CHAPTER 18

A Footnote on Erdmann

344 Works Cited

350 Picture Credits 351 Indices

Preface

P

ersian carpet design was invented in the fifteenth century in carpet factories under the aegis of one of Persia’s great provincial courts. As we enter this cultural world we look to a scene painted in Herat in the year 1494, two years after the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. The scene however is far removed from the tumult of the European Renaissance and its crowning achievement in the voyage of the Genoese seafarer; we are in the great hall of the court kitabkhana, the royal workshop of the arts of the book, which is situated in one of the wings of the palace of Herat’s Sultan Husayn Baykara in eastern Persia. Here are assembled all the artists, perhaps sixty in total, who make up the entire complement of this famous atelier: the paper makers, the page cutters, the margin rulers, the page decorators who sprinkle gold-dust over the sheets before the writing begins, the book binders with their secret skills of sewing the folios, making pasteboard and binding books in lacquer or tooling the leather with patterns in gold, the illuminators who will embellish most of the pages in this court commission with amazingly fine abstract patterns. Here are the calligraphers whose task is to copy the texts of Persia’s great poets (and who previously were the dominant force in the kitabkhana when producing Qur’ans, owing to Islam’s rigid adherence to Arabic script as the source of God’s word), and the painters who will illustrate various scenes from the poems in exquisite miniature paintings (and who have now become the prime movers of the manuscripts as documents of the rulers’ wealth and culture). The special occasion for this gathering is the presentation to Amir Farsi Barlas, one of the sultan’s highest officials and the

10

governor of Samarkand, of one of the greatest Persian manuscripts ever created. This is a volume of the five great legends written by the poet Nizami, set out in 304 pages of fine calligraphy embellished by exquisite page illumination and illustrated by eighteen miniature paintings of the highest order.

The work was commissioned by Amir Barlas from the celebrated painter Bihzad, at that time at the height of his powers as the leading artist of the Herat school and now considered the greatest of all Persian painters. To create the book, completed in 1494 over a period of perhaps a couple of years, Bihzad engaged the collaboration of many of the sixty artists present, including his painters, all of whom collaborated in the work, sometimes working together on the same painting. The Sultan himself is present, as are Amir Barlas and other leading members of the court, including Mir Ali-Sher Nawai, the Sultan’s right-hand-man noted for his frequent patronage of poets, musicians and painters and especially of Bihzad. Other important members of the Sultan’s staff are in the background, such as Shaykhi, the famous flautist, and Qul-Muhammad, the virtuoso lutenist, described to us in the memoirs of Babur, the first Moghul Emperor of India, after his visit to Herat in 1505, both musicians being also close friends of Bihzad.

This scene is used by the painter Mirak for the idealized double-page frontispiece of the manuscript fig 3, which depicts the actual presentation of the book to Amir Barlas in the palace garden. The layout of the images is not meant to be true to life; it follows the strict conventions of miniature painting used by all the artists of the kitabkhana in retelling the legends of Persia’s past heroes, but Bihzad is famous for his realistic style, and the personages depicted are certainly inspired by the Sultan’s entourage. In several of the paintings in the manuscript the Sultan himself can be identified by comparison with other pictures known to be portraits of him. The musicians sitting on the carpet in fig 4 may also be true portraits.

In reality, however, the magnificence of this scene is deceptive. Herat, the metropole of eastern Persia (now in Afghanistan), had been the capital of the empire in the first half of the fifteenth century. It was the home of one of the greatest kitabkhanas in history, created by Shah Rukh (ruled 1409-47), the youngest son of the conqueror Timur (1340-1405). But by the time of Husayn Baykara (1469-1506) what we see is a great last flowering of an empire about to disintegrate. For the whole of western and southern Persia had already fallen under the control of the powerful Turkmen tribes of the Tabriz region, and within this tribal confederacy an even greater threat was brewing: the Kizil Bash conspiracy to set the young descendant of the Sufi mystic Sheikh Safi of Ardebil on the Tabriz throne as the Emperor of all Persia.

The carpets shown in this painting figs 4, 5 are of special interest. Bihzad was renowned for the accuracy of his observation and depiction of everyday life and was certainly aware of what Kurt Erdmann later called the ‘design revolution’ that was already well under way when this scene was painted – namely the switch from abstract all-over patterns to medallion designs surrounded by floral forms. Indeed Bihzad himself is credited with being one of the prime movers of this revolution, and the earliest of the carpets in the new style figs 70-108 were probably already in existence; but he has allowed Mirak here to portray not the new style of carpet but what he would undoubtedly have called ‘traditional Persian carpets’. Fig 4 is more curvilinear and probably more finely woven, but they both fall into the category that was classed as ‘traditional’ in the early fifteenth century.

When we use this term today we envisage something quite different. In the 1981 book Oriental Carpet Design,1 the current author documented the amazing range of patterns used in Persian carpets in the twentieth century: from the abstract and severely rectilinear to the ornately curvilinear revelling in floral and pictorial forms, from the bucolic art of the countryside to the fine work of the towns. Today this is the

11

Preface

P

ersian carpet design was invented in the fifteenth century in carpet factories under the aegis of one of Persia’s great provincial courts. As we enter this cultural world we look to a scene painted in Herat in the year 1494, two years after the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. The scene however is far removed from the tumult of the European Renaissance and its crowning achievement in the voyage of the Genoese seafarer; we are in the great hall of the court kitabkhana, the royal workshop of the arts of the book, which is situated in one of the wings of the palace of Herat’s Sultan Husayn Baykara in eastern Persia. Here are assembled all the artists, perhaps sixty in total, who make up the entire complement of this famous atelier: the paper makers, the page cutters, the margin rulers, the page decorators who sprinkle gold-dust over the sheets before the writing begins, the book binders with their secret skills of sewing the folios, making pasteboard and binding books in lacquer or tooling the leather with patterns in gold, the illuminators who will embellish most of the pages in this court commission with amazingly fine abstract patterns. Here are the calligraphers whose task is to copy the texts of Persia’s great poets (and who previously were the dominant force in the kitabkhana when producing Qur’ans, owing to Islam’s rigid adherence to Arabic script as the source of God’s word), and the painters who will illustrate various scenes from the poems in exquisite miniature paintings (and who have now become the prime movers of the manuscripts as documents of the rulers’ wealth and culture). The special occasion for this gathering is the presentation to Amir Farsi Barlas, one of the sultan’s highest officials and the

10

governor of Samarkand, of one of the greatest Persian manuscripts ever created. This is a volume of the five great legends written by the poet Nizami, set out in 304 pages of fine calligraphy embellished by exquisite page illumination and illustrated by eighteen miniature paintings of the highest order.

The work was commissioned by Amir Barlas from the celebrated painter Bihzad, at that time at the height of his powers as the leading artist of the Herat school and now considered the greatest of all Persian painters. To create the book, completed in 1494 over a period of perhaps a couple of years, Bihzad engaged the collaboration of many of the sixty artists present, including his painters, all of whom collaborated in the work, sometimes working together on the same painting. The Sultan himself is present, as are Amir Barlas and other leading members of the court, including Mir Ali-Sher Nawai, the Sultan’s right-hand-man noted for his frequent patronage of poets, musicians and painters and especially of Bihzad. Other important members of the Sultan’s staff are in the background, such as Shaykhi, the famous flautist, and Qul-Muhammad, the virtuoso lutenist, described to us in the memoirs of Babur, the first Moghul Emperor of India, after his visit to Herat in 1505, both musicians being also close friends of Bihzad.

This scene is used by the painter Mirak for the idealized double-page frontispiece of the manuscript fig 3, which depicts the actual presentation of the book to Amir Barlas in the palace garden. The layout of the images is not meant to be true to life; it follows the strict conventions of miniature painting used by all the artists of the kitabkhana in retelling the legends of Persia’s past heroes, but Bihzad is famous for his realistic style, and the personages depicted are certainly inspired by the Sultan’s entourage. In several of the paintings in the manuscript the Sultan himself can be identified by comparison with other pictures known to be portraits of him. The musicians sitting on the carpet in fig 4 may also be true portraits.

In reality, however, the magnificence of this scene is deceptive. Herat, the metropole of eastern Persia (now in Afghanistan), had been the capital of the empire in the first half of the fifteenth century. It was the home of one of the greatest kitabkhanas in history, created by Shah Rukh (ruled 1409-47), the youngest son of the conqueror Timur (1340-1405). But by the time of Husayn Baykara (1469-1506) what we see is a great last flowering of an empire about to disintegrate. For the whole of western and southern Persia had already fallen under the control of the powerful Turkmen tribes of the Tabriz region, and within this tribal confederacy an even greater threat was brewing: the Kizil Bash conspiracy to set the young descendant of the Sufi mystic Sheikh Safi of Ardebil on the Tabriz throne as the Emperor of all Persia.

The carpets shown in this painting figs 4, 5 are of special interest. Bihzad was renowned for the accuracy of his observation and depiction of everyday life and was certainly aware of what Kurt Erdmann later called the ‘design revolution’ that was already well under way when this scene was painted – namely the switch from abstract all-over patterns to medallion designs surrounded by floral forms. Indeed Bihzad himself is credited with being one of the prime movers of this revolution, and the earliest of the carpets in the new style figs 70-108 were probably already in existence; but he has allowed Mirak here to portray not the new style of carpet but what he would undoubtedly have called ‘traditional Persian carpets’. Fig 4 is more curvilinear and probably more finely woven, but they both fall into the category that was classed as ‘traditional’ in the early fifteenth century.

When we use this term today we envisage something quite different. In the 1981 book Oriental Carpet Design,1 the current author documented the amazing range of patterns used in Persian carpets in the twentieth century: from the abstract and severely rectilinear to the ornately curvilinear revelling in floral and pictorial forms, from the bucolic art of the countryside to the fine work of the towns. Today this is the

11

T HE PERSIAN CARPET T RADIT ION

CHAPT ER 1 - T HE T RADIT IONAL PERSIAN CARPET IN 1450

19 Sassanid Persian silk textile. Birds or animals in roundels are also widely found in textiles from Tang China, but in Persian carpet designs seen in the miniature paintings the geometric forms dominate.

20 Detail of the carpet in fig 6. The flower has been reduced here to an almost abstract rosette. Its alternation with an eightpointed star and with endless knots documents a tile-pattern tradition in Persian art that harks back to the stone carpet in fig 15 and the mosaic in fig 13.

This severe rectilinear style is in accord with the wall decoration and with the plainness of the courtiers’ dresses visible in fig 17.

21 Manuscript detail.

This shows the carpet pattern from another miniature in the manuscript shown in fig 6. The tilepattern feel is retained but without the white ‘grouting joints’ seen in fig 20 and with both pattern motifs reduced to totally abstract star shapes, which suggests the abstraction may be a matter of weaving technicalities rather than stylistic requirements.

19

Persian carpet patterns. Most decorative motifs are derived originally from flower or leaf shapes, and as we shall see in Chapter Two the ‘carpet revolution’ involved a veritable explosion of such shapes. But in the early fifteenth century carpets the plant forms are very severely reduced to abstract shapes, which may be either curvilinear or rectilinear but always abstract.

The abstraction is perfectly illustrated in figs 20 and 21 . But the reason for the abstraction is not entirely clear. Serjeant suggests that there had already been a trend to this in late Sassanid art, and that early Islamic artists simply followed a style they inherited from Sassanid Persia.11 The trend can also be discerned in fig 10, where most of the octagonal motifs originally contained figural material that has been removed by iconoclasts. The designers may have had in mind the injunction of some religious leaders not to imitate living things in their art, a theme that inspired Islamic

24

20

21

illumination and decoration from an early period. But the same miniatures are full of images of people, animals and plants, which would contradict this; if the people sitting on the carpets are depicted true to life there is no reason why the flowers in the carpet patterns have to be drawn in the abstract. On top of this it is only in the miniature paintings that we see this feature: manuscript illumination throughout the fourteenth century uses lotus flowers and many sprays of blossoms and leaves. This leads to the suggestion that the abstraction may be more a matter of weaving technicalities. As a general rule we know that to produce finely detailed curvilinear patterns a high knot count is needed. None of the Anatolian rugs which have survived from this period have a high knot count (typically 700-800 knots per dm²); most of the patterns seen in the miniatures would not need a high knot count, so it may be reasonable to assume that carpet production even for court use was relatively coarse in weave, at least as compared to later carpets.

In modern-day Persia there are of course many carpet patterns woven in an abstract style which nevertheless clearly have floral origins. A.C. Edwards in his book The Persian Carpet demonstrates admirably how this comes about.12 Reformulating in 1950 the text he originally wrote in 1923 on the weaving practices of the villages around Heriz in the Tabriz district, he writes: A sketch is appended which shows, side by side, an early medallion-and-corner Tabriz design, and the same design broken up into straight lines figs 22-23 – as the Heriz weavers would then have interpreted it, and as they would interpret it today.

This propensity of the weavers of the area to break up curves into straight lines may be seen in operation any day in any of their villages. One has only to ask a weaver to show her design. A piece of white cloth will be produced, measuring about 9 x 6 inches, on which the pattern of one-quarter of the carpet has been drawn and roughly coloured. The pattern is always curvilinear – yet the design of the carpet

25

T HE PERSIAN CARPET T RADIT ION

CHAPT ER 1 - T HE T RADIT IONAL PERSIAN CARPET IN 1450

19 Sassanid Persian silk textile. Birds or animals in roundels are also widely found in textiles from Tang China, but in Persian carpet designs seen in the miniature paintings the geometric forms dominate.

20 Detail of the carpet in fig 6. The flower has been reduced here to an almost abstract rosette. Its alternation with an eightpointed star and with endless knots documents a tile-pattern tradition in Persian art that harks back to the stone carpet in fig 15 and the mosaic in fig 13.

This severe rectilinear style is in accord with the wall decoration and with the plainness of the courtiers’ dresses visible in fig 17.

21 Manuscript detail.

This shows the carpet pattern from another miniature in the manuscript shown in fig 6. The tilepattern feel is retained but without the white ‘grouting joints’ seen in fig 20 and with both pattern motifs reduced to totally abstract star shapes, which suggests the abstraction may be a matter of weaving technicalities rather than stylistic requirements.

19

Persian carpet patterns. Most decorative motifs are derived originally from flower or leaf shapes, and as we shall see in Chapter Two the ‘carpet revolution’ involved a veritable explosion of such shapes. But in the early fifteenth century carpets the plant forms are very severely reduced to abstract shapes, which may be either curvilinear or rectilinear but always abstract.

The abstraction is perfectly illustrated in figs 20 and 21 . But the reason for the abstraction is not entirely clear. Serjeant suggests that there had already been a trend to this in late Sassanid art, and that early Islamic artists simply followed a style they inherited from Sassanid Persia.11 The trend can also be discerned in fig 10, where most of the octagonal motifs originally contained figural material that has been removed by iconoclasts. The designers may have had in mind the injunction of some religious leaders not to imitate living things in their art, a theme that inspired Islamic

24

20

21

illumination and decoration from an early period. But the same miniatures are full of images of people, animals and plants, which would contradict this; if the people sitting on the carpets are depicted true to life there is no reason why the flowers in the carpet patterns have to be drawn in the abstract. On top of this it is only in the miniature paintings that we see this feature: manuscript illumination throughout the fourteenth century uses lotus flowers and many sprays of blossoms and leaves. This leads to the suggestion that the abstraction may be more a matter of weaving technicalities. As a general rule we know that to produce finely detailed curvilinear patterns a high knot count is needed. None of the Anatolian rugs which have survived from this period have a high knot count (typically 700-800 knots per dm²); most of the patterns seen in the miniatures would not need a high knot count, so it may be reasonable to assume that carpet production even for court use was relatively coarse in weave, at least as compared to later carpets.

In modern-day Persia there are of course many carpet patterns woven in an abstract style which nevertheless clearly have floral origins. A.C. Edwards in his book The Persian Carpet demonstrates admirably how this comes about.12 Reformulating in 1950 the text he originally wrote in 1923 on the weaving practices of the villages around Heriz in the Tabriz district, he writes: A sketch is appended which shows, side by side, an early medallion-and-corner Tabriz design, and the same design broken up into straight lines figs 22-23 – as the Heriz weavers would then have interpreted it, and as they would interpret it today.

This propensity of the weavers of the area to break up curves into straight lines may be seen in operation any day in any of their villages. One has only to ask a weaver to show her design. A piece of white cloth will be produced, measuring about 9 x 6 inches, on which the pattern of one-quarter of the carpet has been drawn and roughly coloured. The pattern is always curvilinear – yet the design of the carpet

25

T HE PERSIAN CARPET T RADIT ION

CHAPTER 2

The Carpet Design Revolution

W

39 Detail of fig 56.

Centrepiece of the earliest ‘carpet design’ illumination.

32

hen did the revolution begin? As with all revolutions, there were rumblings in advance, then an explosion of monumental vehemence, followed by a period in which the achievements of the revolution were digested, developed and finally accepted in a form that transformed what preceded it, surpassing what went before – and then fading into the background as the new ideas took on a life of their own.

We have seen that the art of the miniature painters was governed by a desire to abstract all design elements: they may have looked at a rose or a lotus, but in copying it they transformed it into an ethereal, weightless rosette. This same policy was adopted in some areas of manuscript illumination also. The artists inherited from the Ara Pacis, the altar to peace erected by Augustus, the first Roman Emperor, the concept of a surface pattern dominated and ordered by a vine-scroll fig 41 . But they chose to replace the floral elements with so-called split arabesques figs 40, 42, which totally dematerialized the vegetal origin of the scroll pattern, even if tiny floral elements are sometimes still retained. Jessica Rawson documents how the split arabesque scrolls were a stylized derivative of medieval Persian architectural ornament based on acanthus leaf patterns of ancient Greece.18 Many examples of scroll patterns ending in split arabesques will be seen in this book.19 This was the design material hovering in the background at the beginning of the fifteenth century, the starting point from which the revolution was launched.

The rumblings in advance came from China. Chinese ceramic and textile arts had been known in Persia for many centuries, but the Mongol conquest in the thirteenth

33

T HE PERSIAN CARPET T RADIT ION

CHAPTER 2

The Carpet Design Revolution

W

39 Detail of fig 56.

Centrepiece of the earliest ‘carpet design’ illumination.

32

hen did the revolution begin? As with all revolutions, there were rumblings in advance, then an explosion of monumental vehemence, followed by a period in which the achievements of the revolution were digested, developed and finally accepted in a form that transformed what preceded it, surpassing what went before – and then fading into the background as the new ideas took on a life of their own.

We have seen that the art of the miniature painters was governed by a desire to abstract all design elements: they may have looked at a rose or a lotus, but in copying it they transformed it into an ethereal, weightless rosette. This same policy was adopted in some areas of manuscript illumination also. The artists inherited from the Ara Pacis, the altar to peace erected by Augustus, the first Roman Emperor, the concept of a surface pattern dominated and ordered by a vine-scroll fig 41 . But they chose to replace the floral elements with so-called split arabesques figs 40, 42, which totally dematerialized the vegetal origin of the scroll pattern, even if tiny floral elements are sometimes still retained. Jessica Rawson documents how the split arabesque scrolls were a stylized derivative of medieval Persian architectural ornament based on acanthus leaf patterns of ancient Greece.18 Many examples of scroll patterns ending in split arabesques will be seen in this book.19 This was the design material hovering in the background at the beginning of the fifteenth century, the starting point from which the revolution was launched.

The rumblings in advance came from China. Chinese ceramic and textile arts had been known in Persia for many centuries, but the Mongol conquest in the thirteenth

33

T HE PERSIAN CARPET T RADIT ION

CHAPT ER 2 - T HE CARPET DESIGN REVOLUT ION

63 Tabriz miniature, ca. 1478. This painting shows the court of the Ak Koyunlu ruler Yakub Beg. Carpets in paintings cannot be relied upon to show what fifteenth century court carpets truly looked like.

But the finely detailed pattern featured here may be closer to reality than what we see in most miniatures of the period.

63

This does not necessarily mean the painters never depicted an actual carpet, as a comparison of different subject matters reveals. There are several series of paintings showing the Persian hero Bahram Gur visiting foreign princesses, each of which is housed in a differently coloured pavilion. The carpet design remains the same in each pavilion, but its ground colour is changed each time to match the colour of the pavilion. But when the painting includes a portrait of a living ruler, such as Baysunghur Seated in a Garden, Herat, 1429 fig 35, The Court of Yaqub Beg, Tabriz, 1478 fig 63, or Sultan Ali Mirza of Gilan, Lahijan, 1494 fig 2, the carpets are presented with immaculate detail, which suggests a drawing from life. These three carpets, it should be noted, all use curvilinear Persian variants of the rectilinear Turkish design of the small-pattern Holbein fig 33.

Another scene in a miniature where the pattern of the carpet may be faithfully reproduced is The Coronation of Sultan Husayn Baykara, Herat, 1469, attributed to Mansur fig 64. Given the event being celebrated in the painting, the artist could well have been enjoined to make the depiction as faithful as possible. Abolala Soudavar, in his analysis of this miniature, does not specifically mention the carpet pattern, but he points to many details which confirm that, within the idealized framework demanded by convention, the event itself is depicted as it actually happened.26 The design of the ground is basically the same as the abstract pattern shown in fig 20, but it is drawn here in a fully curvilinear form and is set within a curvilinear border related to the one seen in fig 60 – and is in fact relatively closely modelled on the border of fig 56. As with the stylistically similar ground design seen in fig 4 the impression is of a quite finely woven piece such as would be appropriate for a grand ceremony. So while many of the carpets in paintings must be considered as little more than doodles on the part of the artist, some may indeed represent carpets which the painter has actually seen.

One reason why the carpet patterns in the miniatures had to change was that the interior décor fashion had also changed, and to keep to the parameters of artistic presentation the carpet had to match the rest of the picture. Fig 7 documents how badly the ‘traditional’ tile-pattern designs fitted into the fashionable new decorative style.

Arabesque patterns such as appear in this miniature had of course been known in mosque tile decoration for centuries. But the amazingly severe interior seen in fig 6 contains none of this, and stands in stark contrast to the fluidity that can be discerned in

46

64 The Coronation of Sultan Husayn Baykhara, Herat, 1469. Many details in this miniature painting show features of this grand ceremony which are true to life, which may mean the design of what appears to be a finely woven carpet is a true representation of Timurid court art.

64

47

T HE PERSIAN CARPET T RADIT ION

CHAPT ER 2 - T HE CARPET DESIGN REVOLUT ION

63 Tabriz miniature, ca. 1478. This painting shows the court of the Ak Koyunlu ruler Yakub Beg. Carpets in paintings cannot be relied upon to show what fifteenth century court carpets truly looked like.

But the finely detailed pattern featured here may be closer to reality than what we see in most miniatures of the period.

63

This does not necessarily mean the painters never depicted an actual carpet, as a comparison of different subject matters reveals. There are several series of paintings showing the Persian hero Bahram Gur visiting foreign princesses, each of which is housed in a differently coloured pavilion. The carpet design remains the same in each pavilion, but its ground colour is changed each time to match the colour of the pavilion. But when the painting includes a portrait of a living ruler, such as Baysunghur Seated in a Garden, Herat, 1429 fig 35, The Court of Yaqub Beg, Tabriz, 1478 fig 63, or Sultan Ali Mirza of Gilan, Lahijan, 1494 fig 2, the carpets are presented with immaculate detail, which suggests a drawing from life. These three carpets, it should be noted, all use curvilinear Persian variants of the rectilinear Turkish design of the small-pattern Holbein fig 33.

Another scene in a miniature where the pattern of the carpet may be faithfully reproduced is The Coronation of Sultan Husayn Baykara, Herat, 1469, attributed to Mansur fig 64. Given the event being celebrated in the painting, the artist could well have been enjoined to make the depiction as faithful as possible. Abolala Soudavar, in his analysis of this miniature, does not specifically mention the carpet pattern, but he points to many details which confirm that, within the idealized framework demanded by convention, the event itself is depicted as it actually happened.26 The design of the ground is basically the same as the abstract pattern shown in fig 20, but it is drawn here in a fully curvilinear form and is set within a curvilinear border related to the one seen in fig 60 – and is in fact relatively closely modelled on the border of fig 56. As with the stylistically similar ground design seen in fig 4 the impression is of a quite finely woven piece such as would be appropriate for a grand ceremony. So while many of the carpets in paintings must be considered as little more than doodles on the part of the artist, some may indeed represent carpets which the painter has actually seen.

One reason why the carpet patterns in the miniatures had to change was that the interior décor fashion had also changed, and to keep to the parameters of artistic presentation the carpet had to match the rest of the picture. Fig 7 documents how badly the ‘traditional’ tile-pattern designs fitted into the fashionable new decorative style.

Arabesque patterns such as appear in this miniature had of course been known in mosque tile decoration for centuries. But the amazingly severe interior seen in fig 6 contains none of this, and stands in stark contrast to the fluidity that can be discerned in

46

64 The Coronation of Sultan Husayn Baykhara, Herat, 1469. Many details in this miniature painting show features of this grand ceremony which are true to life, which may mean the design of what appears to be a finely woven carpet is a true representation of Timurid court art.

64

47

T HE PERSIAN CARPET T RADIT ION

CHAPTER 4

The Core Group

F

69 Detail of fig 92.

66

loral carpets with big central medallions suddenly appeared from the looms of Ushak at about the same date as the medallion carpets in Persia. Various scholars have argued that they came like a bolt from the blue, with no transitional pieces between the geometric small-pattern Holbeins and the medallion Ushaks. The same does not apply in Persia: the evidence of the miniatures shows that at least some form of medallion carpet was known in the first half of the fifteenth century, and the surviving cloud-collar medallion carpets were a progression from these earlier designs. It may in fact perhaps be argued that the Ushak carpets themselves represented a Turkish response to the new developments in Persia. It has been noted that the carpets in miniatures are all very small, but that this is only an aspect of the strict conventions governing miniature painting, for the new medallion carpets in both Turkey and Persia were huge.

The original sizes of the carpets in this chapter (as noted in the individual captions) vary between 184 x 459 cm (6'0" x 15'1") and 396 x 840 cm (13'0" x 27'8"). Large carpets were not unheard of in Persia: the big halls of the imperial palaces needed big floor-coverings. The one great carpet that is documented from ancient times, the socalled ‘Spring of Chosroes’, which was cut to pieces when the Arabs captured the Sassanid capital of Ctesiphon in 637 ce, was immense (its legendary character persuaded Arab historians to suggest unverifiable estimates of its size going up to 600 square metres/ 6,500 square feet.) Whether this was a knotted carpet, a wall-hanging or a textile of some other structure cannot be established for sure, but there is no doubt of its magnificence, since it was richly encrusted with gems and gold and silver threads, and was used by

67

T HE PERSIAN CARPET T RADIT ION

CHAPTER 4

The Core Group

F

69 Detail of fig 92.

66

loral carpets with big central medallions suddenly appeared from the looms of Ushak at about the same date as the medallion carpets in Persia. Various scholars have argued that they came like a bolt from the blue, with no transitional pieces between the geometric small-pattern Holbeins and the medallion Ushaks. The same does not apply in Persia: the evidence of the miniatures shows that at least some form of medallion carpet was known in the first half of the fifteenth century, and the surviving cloud-collar medallion carpets were a progression from these earlier designs. It may in fact perhaps be argued that the Ushak carpets themselves represented a Turkish response to the new developments in Persia. It has been noted that the carpets in miniatures are all very small, but that this is only an aspect of the strict conventions governing miniature painting, for the new medallion carpets in both Turkey and Persia were huge.

The original sizes of the carpets in this chapter (as noted in the individual captions) vary between 184 x 459 cm (6'0" x 15'1") and 396 x 840 cm (13'0" x 27'8"). Large carpets were not unheard of in Persia: the big halls of the imperial palaces needed big floor-coverings. The one great carpet that is documented from ancient times, the socalled ‘Spring of Chosroes’, which was cut to pieces when the Arabs captured the Sassanid capital of Ctesiphon in 637 ce, was immense (its legendary character persuaded Arab historians to suggest unverifiable estimates of its size going up to 600 square metres/ 6,500 square feet.) Whether this was a knotted carpet, a wall-hanging or a textile of some other structure cannot be established for sure, but there is no doubt of its magnificence, since it was richly encrusted with gems and gold and silver threads, and was used by

67

T HE PERSIAN CARPET T RADIT ION

93

94

in Shiraz, and this kind of scroll edging is hardly ever used in any other classical carpets.

Other carpets have medallions with completely unadorned curved or straight-line outer contours.75 A third category edges the medallion with a relatively narrow band of patterning which may be based on little cloudbands or small palmette or leaf motifs, as seen in figs 143, 179. One would expect that the way the medallions are outlined could offer evidence for dating or for the hallmark of one particular weaving establishment; but there is no correlation between the variants of the medallion shape and the three outlining approaches: some of the well-drawn cloud collar medallions have coiled-scroll contours while others (with the same ground pattern and the same border and hence presumed to be of the same origin) have a plain outline. In some cases the medallion has a band of secondary patterning as well as a coiled-scroll outline. What this might mean is that there were two or more carpet manufactories in the same city, all using the same key design elements, but with each master designer using his own variants of individual details, but it might possibly reflect the degree of freedom left to the weaver in interpreting the rudimentary cartoons.

In classifying the carpets probably the most important element is the ‘proto-Herati’ ground pattern which features in 26 of the carpets figs 70-131 and in some of the fragments shown in Chapter Nine. The key features of this pattern are: 1. that the curvilinearity of the vine-scrolls is relatively well respected in both the designing and the execution of all the carpets; 2. that all these scrolls terminate in two-lobed split arabesques which are often elaborated to the point where they look like the fossils of some evolutionary predecessor of the snail; 3. that they also incorporate the straight-edged variant of the arabesque typically found also in central medallions of the Ushak carpets; 4. that the stiff palmette forms belong to a design school dedicated to carpet work, independent of the book-arts atelier and missing the elegance of most manuscript sources.

The term proto-Herati is used because Herat is reputedly the source of what is perhaps the most widely used of all Persian designs, simply called the Herati motif. In the early medallion carpets the arabesques are so arranged that one of these elements flanks each of the four sides of a diamond-shaped feature which has a geometric rosette at its centre fig 96. These arabesques, although derived ultimately from leaf forms, are strictly abstract

80

93 Twelfth century Qur’an.

Vine scrolls were used in manuscript illumination from an early date, as seen in this Qur’an (after Pope).

94 The Herati design.

From a drawing in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London 95 Kerman vase-technique carpet. 244 x 591 cm, 8'0" x 19'4". Carpets like this and fig 267 show that the design resources for the Herati pattern were ‘in the air’ by the end of the sixteenth century, but no classical carpets have survived in which it is fully elaborated.

95

81

T HE PERSIAN CARPET T RADIT ION

93

94

in Shiraz, and this kind of scroll edging is hardly ever used in any other classical carpets.

Other carpets have medallions with completely unadorned curved or straight-line outer contours.75 A third category edges the medallion with a relatively narrow band of patterning which may be based on little cloudbands or small palmette or leaf motifs, as seen in figs 143, 179. One would expect that the way the medallions are outlined could offer evidence for dating or for the hallmark of one particular weaving establishment; but there is no correlation between the variants of the medallion shape and the three outlining approaches: some of the well-drawn cloud collar medallions have coiled-scroll contours while others (with the same ground pattern and the same border and hence presumed to be of the same origin) have a plain outline. In some cases the medallion has a band of secondary patterning as well as a coiled-scroll outline. What this might mean is that there were two or more carpet manufactories in the same city, all using the same key design elements, but with each master designer using his own variants of individual details, but it might possibly reflect the degree of freedom left to the weaver in interpreting the rudimentary cartoons.

In classifying the carpets probably the most important element is the ‘proto-Herati’ ground pattern which features in 26 of the carpets figs 70-131 and in some of the fragments shown in Chapter Nine. The key features of this pattern are: 1. that the curvilinearity of the vine-scrolls is relatively well respected in both the designing and the execution of all the carpets; 2. that all these scrolls terminate in two-lobed split arabesques which are often elaborated to the point where they look like the fossils of some evolutionary predecessor of the snail; 3. that they also incorporate the straight-edged variant of the arabesque typically found also in central medallions of the Ushak carpets; 4. that the stiff palmette forms belong to a design school dedicated to carpet work, independent of the book-arts atelier and missing the elegance of most manuscript sources.

The term proto-Herati is used because Herat is reputedly the source of what is perhaps the most widely used of all Persian designs, simply called the Herati motif. In the early medallion carpets the arabesques are so arranged that one of these elements flanks each of the four sides of a diamond-shaped feature which has a geometric rosette at its centre fig 96. These arabesques, although derived ultimately from leaf forms, are strictly abstract

80

93 Twelfth century Qur’an.

Vine scrolls were used in manuscript illumination from an early date, as seen in this Qur’an (after Pope).

94 The Herati design.

From a drawing in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London 95 Kerman vase-technique carpet. 244 x 591 cm, 8'0" x 19'4". Carpets like this and fig 267 show that the design resources for the Herati pattern were ‘in the air’ by the end of the sixteenth century, but no classical carpets have survived in which it is fully elaborated.

95

81

T HE PERSIAN CARPET T RADIT ION

CHAPT ER 4 - T HE CORE GROUP

107 Detail of fig 108.

Note the beautiful rendition of the straight-sided arabesque which is illustrated in fig 111.

108 Cloud-collar medallion carpet.

225 x 616 cm, 7'5" x 20'3".

This piece is appreciably coarser in weave than any of the other carpets in this chapter, but this makes its finely drawn and wellexecuted vine scroll the more surprising. The drawing of the lobed medallion is close to that of fig 75, but without the cloud-coil edging. The corner pieces are, however, edged with a rather corrupt variant of the cloud coil which might perhaps be related to the version seen in fig 98. The narrow innermost guard (barely discernible owing to the worn surface of the carpet) contains the same iconic pattern of elongated rectangles alternating with groups of three dots which is seen in many of the early carpets and is illustrated in fig 118. The unusual pale green in the corner pieces is also used in the medallion of fig 106.

107 108

90

91

T HE PERSIAN CARPET T RADIT ION

CHAPT ER 4 - T HE CORE GROUP

107 Detail of fig 108.

Note the beautiful rendition of the straight-sided arabesque which is illustrated in fig 111.

108 Cloud-collar medallion carpet.

225 x 616 cm, 7'5" x 20'3".

This piece is appreciably coarser in weave than any of the other carpets in this chapter, but this makes its finely drawn and wellexecuted vine scroll the more surprising. The drawing of the lobed medallion is close to that of fig 75, but without the cloud-coil edging. The corner pieces are, however, edged with a rather corrupt variant of the cloud coil which might perhaps be related to the version seen in fig 98. The narrow innermost guard (barely discernible owing to the worn surface of the carpet) contains the same iconic pattern of elongated rectangles alternating with groups of three dots which is seen in many of the early carpets and is illustrated in fig 118. The unusual pale green in the corner pieces is also used in the medallion of fig 106.

107 108

90

91

CHAPT ER 5 - COMMERCIALIZAT ION

113 Cloud collar medallion carpet. 225 x 530 cm, 7'5" x 17'5". A number of features, such as the compressed shape of the medallion and the need for a special corner resolution at the top (caused by the uneven progression of the side borders) give an idea of how the design might have developed in a purely commercial workshop if the originals were the products of a provincial court manufactory.

114 Carpet fragment.

Currently in storage in Istanbul, not available for study or photography. The way the dark blue arabesque of the border constantly changes from wide to narrow, the green corner panels and the details of the layout of the motifs in the ground all imply this carpet was woven from the same original design material as fig 75.

114

of the design and how it worked. The lower standards than in the court-sponsored workshops would also be confirmed by the poor design of the corner resolutions at the bottom and the barely acceptable resolutions at the top.

Further degradation may be observed in fig 113, from the Gulbenkian Collection in Lisbon, and in fig 115, which has been skilfully restored in Berlin’s Museum für Islamische Kunst after a fire bomb hit the storage facility in 1945. As with fig 114, both of these seem to represent part of the on-going tradition derived from what may be the products of a provincial court enterprise, which originated the design. In fig 113 all the ‘court’ elements are present, but they are all somewhat downgraded. The

102

113

103

CHAPT ER 5 - COMMERCIALIZAT ION

113 Cloud collar medallion carpet. 225 x 530 cm, 7'5" x 17'5". A number of features, such as the compressed shape of the medallion and the need for a special corner resolution at the top (caused by the uneven progression of the side borders) give an idea of how the design might have developed in a purely commercial workshop if the originals were the products of a provincial court manufactory.

114 Carpet fragment.

Currently in storage in Istanbul, not available for study or photography. The way the dark blue arabesque of the border constantly changes from wide to narrow, the green corner panels and the details of the layout of the motifs in the ground all imply this carpet was woven from the same original design material as fig 75.

114

of the design and how it worked. The lower standards than in the court-sponsored workshops would also be confirmed by the poor design of the corner resolutions at the bottom and the barely acceptable resolutions at the top.

Further degradation may be observed in fig 113, from the Gulbenkian Collection in Lisbon, and in fig 115, which has been skilfully restored in Berlin’s Museum für Islamische Kunst after a fire bomb hit the storage facility in 1945. As with fig 114, both of these seem to represent part of the on-going tradition derived from what may be the products of a provincial court enterprise, which originated the design. In fig 113 all the ‘court’ elements are present, but they are all somewhat downgraded. The

102

113

103

T HE PERSIAN CARPET T RADIT ION

182 Medallion carpet.

226 x 381 cm, 7'5" x 12'6".

A fractionally smaller pair of this carpet is in the Keir Collection in London. The sharp change of colour at the top is the result of an old repair using inferior materials.

183 Medallion rug fragment. 108 x 238 cm, 3'7" x 7'9". This severely damaged item was previously in the Alberto Boralevi Collection. Present whereabouts unknown.

182

183

184 Medallion rug.

134 x 212 cm, 4'5" x 7'0".

This small piece contains most of the stylistic features associated with the earliest rugs, except in the border. The simplified palmette pattern in the border and the lack of concern for the corner resolutions may well mean this is an early product of a village factory trying to copy the output of a major provincial court establishment.

also includes the iconic ‘Talish’ rosette at the centre of its medallion, all features that would suggest an early date. But the disturbing feature is the border, not only because of the shape of the palmettes but also because no attempt has been made at a corner resolution at the top. Perhaps we have evidence here of the spread of the design to village looms as early as the sixteenth century?

This is a question which may be asked about many of the cloud-collar medallion carpets. If we compare a carpet with a well-executed design to a piece where the design appears degraded our natural reaction is to conclude that the degraded piece was woven later. But this does not necessarily follow: inferior work could also be contemporaneous but woven in an inferior establishment. We should therefore always bear in mind the possibility that the great carpets were woven – let us say, in 1500 – in a high-grade city factory working for a provincial governor, and that second-grade pieces were produced very soon after by second-grade village factories aping the court style. This possibility gains plausibility if the design elements in the second-grade piece seem true to the early style, as they are in fig 184.

In other cases features of later production seem more obvious, and many of the pieces shown in this chapter show signs of the design degradation that has been the fate of all the great Persian carpet designs. But exceptional examples, the many positive features of which are referred to in the captions, show that imaginative design work and top-class workmanship had not yet died out in the medallion carpet factories.

More evidence of this can be seen in the group with a new medallion design which is introduced in fig 185, to be discussed in the next chapter.

184

168

169

T HE PERSIAN CARPET T RADIT ION

182 Medallion carpet.

226 x 381 cm, 7'5" x 12'6".

A fractionally smaller pair of this carpet is in the Keir Collection in London. The sharp change of colour at the top is the result of an old repair using inferior materials.

183 Medallion rug fragment. 108 x 238 cm, 3'7" x 7'9". This severely damaged item was previously in the Alberto Boralevi Collection. Present whereabouts unknown.

182

183

184 Medallion rug.

134 x 212 cm, 4'5" x 7'0".

This small piece contains most of the stylistic features associated with the earliest rugs, except in the border. The simplified palmette pattern in the border and the lack of concern for the corner resolutions may well mean this is an early product of a village factory trying to copy the output of a major provincial court establishment.

also includes the iconic ‘Talish’ rosette at the centre of its medallion, all features that would suggest an early date. But the disturbing feature is the border, not only because of the shape of the palmettes but also because no attempt has been made at a corner resolution at the top. Perhaps we have evidence here of the spread of the design to village looms as early as the sixteenth century?

This is a question which may be asked about many of the cloud-collar medallion carpets. If we compare a carpet with a well-executed design to a piece where the design appears degraded our natural reaction is to conclude that the degraded piece was woven later. But this does not necessarily follow: inferior work could also be contemporaneous but woven in an inferior establishment. We should therefore always bear in mind the possibility that the great carpets were woven – let us say, in 1500 – in a high-grade city factory working for a provincial governor, and that second-grade pieces were produced very soon after by second-grade village factories aping the court style. This possibility gains plausibility if the design elements in the second-grade piece seem true to the early style, as they are in fig 184.

In other cases features of later production seem more obvious, and many of the pieces shown in this chapter show signs of the design degradation that has been the fate of all the great Persian carpet designs. But exceptional examples, the many positive features of which are referred to in the captions, show that imaginative design work and top-class workmanship had not yet died out in the medallion carpet factories.

More evidence of this can be seen in the group with a new medallion design which is introduced in fig 185, to be discussed in the next chapter.

184

168

169

T HE PERSIAN CARPET T RADIT ION

391

392

option used by Ziegler in Arak of giving the weavers design elements in vagireh format for them to turn into a full design using their own imagination.

The producer of fig 390 must have seen either one of the core group of medallion carpets or a later piece using the same ground pattern. She has seen that the vine-scroll layout generates a diamond shape framed by split arabesques. By abstracting these two features she can create a new pattern to be used in full-sized carpets with no medallion. As with other provincial adaptations, the elements derived from the cloudcollar medallion carpets are married to simple oral sprays springing from some other source, or from the weaver’s own imagination. An example is shown in fig 391 .

A feature not yet touched on is the amazing ability of the Persian weaver to transform the cloud collar medallion into a tiny motif that can be used in an all-over repeating pattern alongside many other ground patterns harking back to the tile designs of earlier centuries. Figs 392-395 show different ways this was done. There is of course no suggestion that any of these weavers had direct contact with one of the original medallion carpets: the medallion shape had simply entered the universal design range available to the weaver.204 The fascinating point is the way the weavers and designers saw the potential to transform the motif.

Fig 394 shows how this idea was used in the Caucasus, with several different cloudcollar derived motifs ďŹ lling the ground. An entirely different idea is seen in figs 392 and 395, where the cloud-collar derivatives are used as the main motif of the border.

391 Bijar carpet.

345 x 551 cm, 11'4" x 18'1".

Vagirehs were used to produce Bijar carpets with an all-over ground derived from that of the original cloud-collar carpets. This nineteenth century style is no longer in current production.

392 Afshar rug.

130 x 181 cm, 4'3" x 5'11".

Cloud-collar derived motifs are used as a small all-over repeating pattern.

393 Bijar rug.

135 x 210 cm, 4'5" x 6'10".

No known cloud-collar carpets have an all-over pattern of repeating medallions. Village weavers of the nineteenth century realized the potential of the cloud-collar as a repeating motif.

393

312

313

T HE PERSIAN CARPET T RADIT ION

391

392

option used by Ziegler in Arak of giving the weavers design elements in vagireh format for them to turn into a full design using their own imagination.

The producer of fig 390 must have seen either one of the core group of medallion carpets or a later piece using the same ground pattern. She has seen that the vine-scroll layout generates a diamond shape framed by split arabesques. By abstracting these two features she can create a new pattern to be used in full-sized carpets with no medallion. As with other provincial adaptations, the elements derived from the cloudcollar medallion carpets are married to simple oral sprays springing from some other source, or from the weaver’s own imagination. An example is shown in fig 391 .

A feature not yet touched on is the amazing ability of the Persian weaver to transform the cloud collar medallion into a tiny motif that can be used in an all-over repeating pattern alongside many other ground patterns harking back to the tile designs of earlier centuries. Figs 392-395 show different ways this was done. There is of course no suggestion that any of these weavers had direct contact with one of the original medallion carpets: the medallion shape had simply entered the universal design range available to the weaver.204 The fascinating point is the way the weavers and designers saw the potential to transform the motif.

Fig 394 shows how this idea was used in the Caucasus, with several different cloudcollar derived motifs ďŹ lling the ground. An entirely different idea is seen in figs 392 and 395, where the cloud-collar derivatives are used as the main motif of the border.

391 Bijar carpet.

345 x 551 cm, 11'4" x 18'1".

Vagirehs were used to produce Bijar carpets with an all-over ground derived from that of the original cloud-collar carpets. This nineteenth century style is no longer in current production.

392 Afshar rug.

130 x 181 cm, 4'3" x 5'11".

Cloud-collar derived motifs are used as a small all-over repeating pattern.

393 Bijar rug.

135 x 210 cm, 4'5" x 6'10".

No known cloud-collar carpets have an all-over pattern of repeating medallions. Village weavers of the nineteenth century realized the potential of the cloud-collar as a repeating motif.

393

312

313

T HE PERSIAN CARPET T RADIT ION

CHAPTER 17

Chronology: A Speculation

T

401 Manuscript illumination from which fig 105 is a detail.

322

his book has been able to document some assertions of earlier scholars that are patently wrong. Some of these errors are minor, such as Dimand’s statement that the rugs that the Venetian merchant saw in Tabriz in about 1515 had designs which were ‘round’.207 This is simply a mistranslation of the original Italian text, which states that the rugs themselves, not the designs, were round. Others are more serious, such as the general belief that members of the court kitabkhana were the actual designers of (rather than the inspiration for) the cloud-collar medallion carpets. The most serious error is the attribution of these carpets to the looms of Tabriz and Northwest Persia, when it is well known that no rug that can securely be attributed to this region was ever woven with the Persian knot.

That we can correct such errors does not mean we can offer indisputable proof of where or when these rugs were woven. For this we can rely only on suggesting what seems likely – offering reasoned hypothesis, well aware that this may be wrong and in the hope that the analysis may prompt a future scholar to replace hypothesis with secure fact. A summary of the rugs surveyed and an attempt to justify the chronology assessed may contribute to this.

In this book we have identified eighty or so more or less complete rugs, fifteen important fragments, an assortment of minor fragments, and nineteen pieces that appear to be Persian, Indian and Anatolian copies of the core group of Persian originals. This represents only a tiny fraction of the carpets originally produced. There are no inventory lists to document the quantities involved, but European traveller reports remark that ‘all the floor was covered with excellent good carpets, being about fourteen paces over’ (Barbaro); 208 ‘The

323

T HE PERSIAN CARPET T RADIT ION

CHAPTER 17

Chronology: A Speculation

T

401 Manuscript illumination from which fig 105 is a detail.

322

his book has been able to document some assertions of earlier scholars that are patently wrong. Some of these errors are minor, such as Dimand’s statement that the rugs that the Venetian merchant saw in Tabriz in about 1515 had designs which were ‘round’.207 This is simply a mistranslation of the original Italian text, which states that the rugs themselves, not the designs, were round. Others are more serious, such as the general belief that members of the court kitabkhana were the actual designers of (rather than the inspiration for) the cloud-collar medallion carpets. The most serious error is the attribution of these carpets to the looms of Tabriz and Northwest Persia, when it is well known that no rug that can securely be attributed to this region was ever woven with the Persian knot.

That we can correct such errors does not mean we can offer indisputable proof of where or when these rugs were woven. For this we can rely only on suggesting what seems likely – offering reasoned hypothesis, well aware that this may be wrong and in the hope that the analysis may prompt a future scholar to replace hypothesis with secure fact. A summary of the rugs surveyed and an attempt to justify the chronology assessed may contribute to this.

In this book we have identified eighty or so more or less complete rugs, fifteen important fragments, an assortment of minor fragments, and nineteen pieces that appear to be Persian, Indian and Anatolian copies of the core group of Persian originals. This represents only a tiny fraction of the carpets originally produced. There are no inventory lists to document the quantities involved, but European traveller reports remark that ‘all the floor was covered with excellent good carpets, being about fourteen paces over’ (Barbaro); 208 ‘The

323

T HE PERSIAN CARPET T RADIT ION

Holbein 26, 28, 29, 30, 46, 51, 83, 88, 273-274, 287 Hormuz 99, 217 Housego, Jenny 239 Husayn Baykara 10, 11, 17, 46, 60, 87, 119, 229 Ibn Battuta 56, 99 Ibrahim Sultan 38, 42, 51 Inalcik, Halil 98 India 64, 153, 164, 192, 197, 209, 237, 243, 269, 321 Iskander Sultan 42, 51, 56, 60, 112 Isfahan 19, 26, 93, 86-87, 114, 116, 119, 123, 126, 131, 152, 158, 160, 171, 174, 199-200, 209, 217, 239, 260, 262, 271, 285, 320 Istanbul 19, 39, 42, 56-57, 82, 126, 197, 235, 265 Iznik 82 Jalayarid 54, 225 Kara Koyunlu 17, 55, 60, 64, 87 Kashan 57, 93-94, 123, 126, 131, 138, 160, 174, 199-200, 217, 221, 246, 260, 271, 279, 320 Keir 105, 164 Kerimov, Latif 291 Kerman, 38, 56, 82, 83, 86, 154, 172, 235, 237, 239, 245-246, 256, 294 Kizil Bash 11, 55-56, 74, 87, 101, 158, 217 Klose, Christine 219, 222-224 Konya 26, 54, 158, 197 Kurdistan 83, 185, 215, 217, 247, 259, 262, 277, 287, 297 Kühnel, Ernst 48, 55, 63, 127, 330-331 Lar 56, 87, 99 Lentz and Lowry 30, 44, 48, 54, 63-64, 229, 235 Lotus 25, 33, 35, 36, 39, 42, 79, 148,

352

150, 163 Luri, Luristan 246-247, 262, 285, 287 Mackie, Louise 28 Malayir 93-95, 174 Mathee, Rudi 96 McMullan 69, 73, 76, 84-85, 89, 123, 131 Membré, Michele 86, 123, 158-9, 229, 324 Metropolitan Museum 65, 76, 138, 200, 231 Milan 116, 150, 155, 158-160, 255 Mir Ali Sher Nawai 11, 14 Mirak Nakkash 11, 14, 229 Mohtasham 93-95 Mongol 17, 26, 35, 38, 44, 54, 99, 225, 259 Muzaffarid 54, 60 Nineveh 23, 230 Olearius, Adam 154 Opie, James 247, 249-250, 260, 307 Peking 38, 57 Philadelphia 116 Piccirillo, Michele 21 Pir Budaq 60, 62-64, 232, 320-321 Pope, Arthur U. 21, 48, 55-58, 63, 65, 71, 82, 86, 119, 235, 245-246, 260, 266, 332-333 Qadi Ahmad 123, 333 Qashqa’i 56, 99, 101, 250, 260, 269, 277 Qatar 116, 127, 131 Qazvin 158, 229, 244, 260 Rawson, Jessica 33 Robinson, B. W. 64, 79 Rothschild 116, 127, 131 Safavid 39, 55, 74, 86, 88, 96-97, 114, 116, 119, 137-138, 143, 148, 172, 209, 221, 225, 227, 229, 237, 244, 246, 253, 260, 289, 320, 246, 253, 260, 289, 320, 325-326, 331-332

Samarkand 38, 49, 55, 60, 116, 326 Sassanids 17, 31, 67, 249, 320, 331-332 Selim II 97-98 Seljuk 26, 54, 56, 99, 101, 158 Serjeant, R. B. 19, 330 Shah Abbas 82, 96, 200 Shah Ismail 14, 55, 57-58, 99, 101, 116, 119, 123, 126, 217, 229, 232, 250 Shah Nameh 98, 239 Shah Rukh 11, 17, 30, 37, 38, 42, 45, 49, 55, 60, 64, 224, 244, 333 Shah Tahmasp 55, 97, 119, 158-160, 229, 237, 239, 245, 326 Sheikh Safi 11, 14, 55, 119, 159 Shemakha 289 Shi’ite 60, 73-74, 158 Shiraz 17, 19, 30, 35, 38-39, 42, 44, 48-49, 51, 54, 56-57, 59-60, 64, 76, 70, 79, 82, 87, 96-97, 99, 111, 120, 123, 126, 131-132, 144, 154, 172, 185, 187, 209, 217, 243, 260, 319, 321, 325 Silk Road 49, 57 Soudavar, Abolala 46 Spallanzani, Marco 183 Spuhler, Friedrich 59, 172 Tabriz 17, 25, 28, 46, 53-60, 64, 74, 82, 86-87, 119-120, 123, 126, 131, 135, 137-138, 158, 181, 209, 212, 217, 222, 224, 229, 232, 237, 260, 319, 323, 326 Tanavoli, Parviz 249 Tavernier 244, 247 Tehran 26, 82, 123, 135 Textile Museum 62, 76 Thackston, Wheeler 38, 42, 54 Thompson, Jon 30, 35, 55, 57, 59, 63, 86, 88, 114, 126-127, 155, 159, 181, 232, 266, 325-326 Timur, Timurid 11, 17, 22, 28, 30-31, 38,

39, 44-45, 48-49, 54-55, 60, 64, 85-86, 88, 95, 224-225, 229, 231, 289, 320, 325-326 Tuisarkan 93-95 Turkish 17, 19, 26, 30, 31, 46, 56, 58, 67, 96, 98-99, 101, 119, 123, 225, 135, 152, 158, 164, 197, 202, 204, 206, 209, 212, 215, 243, 249, 265-266, 269, 299, 330-331 Turkmen, Turkoman 17, 28, 29, 31, 53-56, 60, 64, 86-88, 98-99, 119-120, 126, 209, 212, 224-225, 250, 289, 320, 325 Ulugh Beg 38 Ushak 26, 67, 98, 265 Uzun Hasan 53, 86-87, 126

The Persian Carpet Tradition Six Centuries of Design Evolution © P.R.J. Ford 2019 Worldwide copyright reserved ISBN 978-1-89811-362-1 All rights reserved. Except for legitimate excerpts customary in review or scholarly publications, no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

British Library Cataloguing-inPublication Data: A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Welch, S.C. 225 Wertime, John 330 Wright, Elaine 49, 79, 112

Publisher P.R.J. Ford Distribution ACC Publishing, Woodbridge, UK Produced, Packaged and Edited by Hali Publications Ltd., London, UK +44 (0)20 7657 1201 Design Liz Dixon, Happisburgh, Norfolk, UK +44 (0)1692 652983 Print EBS – Editoriale Bortolazzi, Verona, Italy Typefaces: ITC Galliard 10.5/14.5, Franklin Gothic Raw 9.5/12.5

Yakub Beg 46, 49 Yezd 64, 97, 111, 126, 131, 152, 320

Front Cover Detail of fig 142 Back Cover Fig 283 1. Title Page Detail of fig 141

Venice 19, 53, 54, 199, 323 Vienna 106, 174, 176, 235, 255, 332 Völker, Angela 209

Zhuleh, Turaj 249