A Mughal animal and palmette carpet, probably Lahore, North India,

Sarre, F. and F.R. Martin, Die Ausstellung von Meisterwerken Muhammedanisher Kunst in München 1910, London: Alexandria Press, 1984, (reprint of 1910 exhibition catalogue) pl. 82, cat. no. 175.

Indian court carpet production is thought to date from the reign of the Mughal emperor Akbar (r. 1556 – 1605). Until around 1630 designs were based upon contemporaneous Persian models which were then interpreted in an inimitably Indian style.  The classical Persian carpets most in vogue at the Indian Court under the Mughal dynasty were decorated with scenes of animals and gardens often referred to as 'Paradise Garden' or 'Hunting' carpets. 

The theme of the Paradise Garden is an ancient one.  The word 'paradise' derives from pairi-daeza (meaning a walled-in park) in Avestan, the archaic language of the Zoroastrians and is possibly the origin of the concept of the Garden of Eden.  The Koran suggests that the devout Muslim male will be transported to a heavenly garden after death, where he will be waited upon by winged houris (celestial beings).  In Timurid and Safavid Iran, Paradise parks were vast game reserves in which the King and his court indulged in their beloved sport of hunting.  The Paradise Garden is thus a symbol for both earthly as well as heavenly delights and provided the thematic inspiration for many of the greatest carpets woven in the East during the 16th and 17th centuries.  For examples of 16^th century Persian prototypes with verdant landscapes, exotic animals and mythical birds, sometimes also including mounted huntsmen and houris see: Pope, A.U. A Survey of Persian Art, Oxford, 1939,  pls. 1203-1210.  Perhaps the most celebrated of these is the Sanguszko carpet, attributed to Kirman and now in the Miho Museum, Japan, illustrated by Pope, ibid., as plate 1206, and displaying all the elements noted above.  The majority of these carpets, including the Sanguszko carpet, have a large central lobed medallion with pendants, but several 16^th century Persian carpets with overall designs and no central reserve or medallion are known including a late 16^th century East Persian carpet from the Collections of Lily and Edmond J Safra, sold in these rooms 3 November 2005, lot 160 and a silk Kashan hunting carpet in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, (the bequest of Benjamin Altman,  inv. no. 14.40.721), see: Dimand, M. S. and Jean Mailey, Oriental Rugs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1973, p. 142, fig. 79, no. 13. Although the field design of the Safra carpet has both vertical and horizontal symmetry, the elements within the Altman carpet are arranged asymmetrically in an ascending format, as in the current Indian example.         

The border of the present example is composed of lobed cartouches alternating with lobed roundels, also a stylistic element of Persian origin.  Persian examples of this border treatment include the Ardabil carpet in the Victoria and Albert Museum, which is inscribed and dated 1539-40, see Wearden, J., Oriental Carpets and their Structure, Highlights from the V & A Collection, London, 2003, pl. 29, p. 46; the 'Compartment and Tree' carpet, Clam Gallas Collection, illustrated in Pope, op. cit., pl. 1143 and dated to the middle or late 16th century as well as the Safra carpet previously cited.  Indian carpets with related borders include the Widener carpet, now in the National Gallery, Washington D. C., see: Walker, Daniel, Flowers Underfoot, Indian Carpets of The Mughal Era, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (exh. cat.), New York, 1997, p. 55, fig. 48 and the Sackville Mughal animal and Tree carpet now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, gifted by J Pierpont Morgan in 1917, (inv. No. 17.190.858), see: Franses, M. and D. Shaffer, ‘An Early Indian Carpet’, Hali, Issue 28, pp. 33-9 and Flowers, ibid., pp. 42-3, figs. 33 & 34.  The border can also be seen on a fragmentary rug of typical in-and-out palmette design from the Bernheimer Family Collection, see Christie’s London, 14 February 1996, lot 2 and a large scale Mughal animal carpet from the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York, sold in these rooms, 4 April 2001, lot 155.  A similar carpet with lobed cartouche design border is depicted in an Indian miniature from 1618 in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (inv. No. IM.124-1921), published Hali, Vol. 4 No. 3, p. 244, fig. 4, illustrated above.

Recent scholarship has attributed this group of carpets to Lahore in what was then North India, and places it firmly within the reign of Akbar’s son Jahangir (r. 1605 – 1627), a renowned connoisseur, collector and artistic patron.  Once Jahangir’s son Shah Jahan became emperor in 1628 he introduced a new vogue of court decoration based on his enthusiasm for European herbaria. Carpet and textile designs were now increasingly composed of naturalistic renderings of plants drawn with exceptional botanical realism as seen on three carpets from the J Paul Getty Museum, sold in these rooms, 8 December 1990, lots 7, 8 and 9., another in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. no. 1970.321 (see: Walker, D., Flowers, op. cit. pp. 96-7, figs. 93 & 94.) and one from the Vojtech Blau Collection offered as lot 66 in this catalogue.  As the Mughal Court transferred its economic and political focus from Persia and the East to its new trading allies, the Western European powers such as Holland and England, so it replaced the Safavid design ethos with a more European aesthetic.     

In this carpet there are no huntsmen or weapons to be seen.  Leopards, deer (qilin) both stags and fawns, tigers and phoenix are depicted as single entities, exuberantly leaping and bounding with no animal combat shown.  All predators have been replaced by a lush representation of the garden with stylized floral cornucopia, tri-colored elongated lancet leaves, serrated and radiating palmettes and blossoming hyacinth shrubs. Other Mughal carpets with similar design elements include a rug from the J Paul Getty Museum, see: Sotheby’s New York, 8 December 1990, lot 1, one formerly in the V. and L. Benguiat Collection, see: American Art Association, New York, 23 April 1932, lot 25 and another from the Toyoma Memorial Museum, Saitama, Japan, published Flowers (op. cit.) p. 54, fig. 47, cat. no. 9.

By focusing on these living animals existing harmoniously within nature, rather than on the hunted and the wounded prey that are the inevitable result of the Safavid huntsmens’ sport, the designers of this carpet seem to be recalling the Paradise theme in its purest form, as Garden of Eden rather than as pleasure ground. The concept of heavenly bliss rather than earthly gratifications is reinforced by the inclusion of both phoenix and hyacinths, each being representations of the idealization of rebirth and regeneration.