Carpet

CARPET. - The fragments found in Turkestan (5th-6th centuries) and at al-Fusṭāt near Cairo (8th-9th centuries), knotted and with geometric decoration, or with confronted animals — even though of a technique already so perfect as to suggest a long earlier tradition — have shed some light on the history of the carpet, which is poor in sources and in ancient examples.

According to the current opinion, the origin of the carpet is Eastern; from Central Asia in the 11th century nomadic populations spread its use and its manufacture in Asia Minor, Persia, etc. The oldest center whose production has been preserved is the Turkish one: it developed after the Seljuq dynasty had moved from Central Asia into the Near East (a magnificent example is the carpet of the Türk ve İslam Eserleri Müzesi in Constantinople, woven in the 13th century for the mosque of Konya). Another considerable center since ancient times must have been Egypt, of which, however, there are only late records beginning from the second half of the 15th century; there a refined type of carpet was widespread, called "Mamluk," also improperly called Damascene, with a kaleidoscopic arrangement of decoration (see in Italy: Florence, Museo Bardini; Milan, coll. Campana) and later a type with naturalistic decoration, called "Turkish court," and another, with a checkered pattern, called "Syriac."

Persia is undoubtedly the most remarkable center; extraordinary was the flowering of the 15th century and the exquisite perfection that makes the carpet a true artistic creation, closely linked to miniature painting; it takes on a courtly character with Šāh 'Abbās I the Great (1587-1628), with a type of carpet in silk and silver, called "Polish" (Venice, basilica of St. Mark and Museo Correr; Florence, Museo degli Argenti). A magnificent example of a Persian carpet, perhaps the oldest, of the classic type with a central medallion with hunting scenes among tangles of stems, leaves and flowers, is in Milan at the Poldi Pezzoli, dated 1522.

The major Persian centers are: Tabriz in northern Persia (which offers a type of carpet of exceptional refinement and fantasy: see Metropolitan Museum, New York; Hatvany, Budapest; Milan, Poldi Pezzoli; Florence, Museo del Bargello), Kašān in central Persia (see Museum of Vienna; Rothschild coll. of Paris; Royal Palace of Stockholm), Kismann in the southern region and Herāt in eastern Persia. The carpets of Herāt, once erroneously called those of Ispahān, have a red ground with decoration of large palmettes and lotus flowers and sometimes with figures of animals, of a particular richness and fantasy (Museum of Vienna; Museo civico of Turin; Victoria and Albert Museum of London). The Persian carpet exerted strong influences on those of Anatolia, India and the Caucasus. In Asia Minor the Seljuq production (12th-14th centuries) with geometric decoration flourished first (among which the so-called Holbein carpets), then that with figures of stylized animals, which died out in the 15th century; but the most widespread Anatolian carpet, the geometric one, called Ušak, continued throughout the 17th century to take on Persian elements which it reworked with freshness of inspiration and spirit of inventiveness. The prayer type was very widespread, also produced at Ghiordes and at Ladik; still in Anatolia in the 18th century the carpets of Bergama flourished and until the middle of the 19th century those called Smyrna. Indian models are directly inspired by Persian carpets. By almost all scholars the type commonly called Armenian, called dragon (Museum of Berlin), of long and narrow shape, stylized and archaic, is considered to be from the Caucasus.

Rather recent is the origin of the Chinese carpet (18th century), which had influences on the Kašgar carpet of eastern Turkestan of the early 19th century, while in Spain the production is believed to date back to the 13th-14th century, the period to which the so-called synagogue carpet, decorated with the symbolic candelabrum, in the Museum of Berlin, is referred. The oldest types of Spanish carpets (Alcaraz and Cuenca) link up with the Anatolian ones, especially with the so-called Holbein ones (Viale). Imitations of Turkish and Persian carpets flourished in Paris beginning from the 17th century in the factories of the Louvre and of the "Savonnerie," however with ornamental motifs drawn from the West; among the most famous are the carpet with the allegory of the death of Louis XIII at the Musée des Gobelins, the admirable Louvre series and the carpet for the chapel of Versailles, now in the church of St. Eustache in Paris. - See pl. CXXIII.

Luisa Mortari