An Azerbaijan gallery carpet, 18th century

The design of this impressive gallery carpet shows reference to Safavid Tabriz medallion carpets of the 16^th century. The interlinked cartouche border in which the crossover cartouches each enclose a palmette is closely comparable to a magnificent Tabriz medallion carpet in the Bardini Museum, Florence (inv.no.730/456).

The unusual field design displays lobed medallions alternating with large ragged palmettes and supported by paired secondary palmettes placed on a horizontal axis. The lobed form of the cartouches also bears similarities with the large, centralised medallion of the Bardini Tabriz carpet mentioned above, although woven of a much smaller and simplified scale, repeated throughout the carpet. The palmettes similarly derive from earlier sources recalling Safavid ‘in -and-out’ palmette fields, variations of which occurred in Northwest Persia, Azerbaijan and the Caucasus. A Caucasian ‘Blossom’ carpet of comparable field arrangement sold at Sotheby’s New York, 16 December 2004, lot 58.

The format of the lobed medallion on a palmette ground is found on single medallion rugs that have been designated ‘Golden Triangle’ carpets, comprising weavings from a region encompassing parts of Northeast Anatolia, southern Transcaucasian and Northwest Persia (Levi 2023, p.103). One example includes a carpet fragment in the James D. Burns collection which shows a similar centralised lobed medallion within a cartouche border (Levi 2023, p. 105, fig.8), an 18^th century Trans-Caucasian rug offered at Sotheby’s, New York, 2 April 2004, lot 60 (see Levi 2023, p. 106, fig.12) and a 17^th century rug, attributed to Northeast Anatolia, sold at Christie’s, 9 June 2009, lot 19 (Hali, no. 160, p.125).