Western Anatolia, late 17th/early 18th century

Mounted on linen backing, 162 x 102 cm. / 5 ft 3 ¾ ins  by 3 ft 4 ins

The brick-red field divided by separate rows of dark-blue flowering palmettes and minor light-blue medallions with rosettes.

PROVENANCE:
An important private collection, USA

This attractive fragment comes from a large carpet belonging to a group known as Smyrna carpets, which originate from the Ushak area in West Anatolia and were popular in Europe in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. An example is depicted in a portrait of Maria Luisa of Parma by Laurent Pécheux in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (1765).[1]

For an example with a very similar design but on a blue ground, see Mercedes Viale Ferraro, op. cit.. See also a late seventeenth-century red-ground Ushak Smyrna, sold in Christie’s, London, 'David Halevim: Magnificent Carpets & Tapestries', lot 53, which has a similar field design. Another Smyrna carpet, from the Robert Kime Collection (sold Dreweatts, 5 Oct 2023, lot 692), of a slightly later date, has similar colour palette and design albeit with a more squashed pattern in the field.

RELATED LITERATURE:
Mercedes Viale Ferraro, Rare Carpets from East and West, Orbis, London, 1972, p. 50, no. 42.

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[1] For an image of this painting, see Metropolitan Museum website: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437265