Arts of the Islamic World
Arts of the Islamic World
PROPERTY FROM AN IMPORTANT EUROPEAN COLLECTION
KURDISH, AZERBAIJAN | A Garden (Chahar Bagh) fragment, 18th century
Auction Closed
October 23, 04:16 PM GMT
Estimate
7,000 - 10,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Property from an Important European Collection
KURDISH, AZERBAIJAN,
A Garden (Chahar Bagh) fragment, 18th century
depicting a portion of the field with a central watercourse, with lateral watercourses and cloud-collar shaped pools at the interces, each enclosing two pairs of waterfowl, their heads twisted to face each other, flanking a highly stylised fountain. The watercourses all with fish, edged with narrow flower borders in dark blue and enclosing stylised Oriental Plane trees and octagram star shaped flower beds, within an unusual broad dark blue border of angular kufesque arabesque interlace and trefoil palmettes and a coral and dark blue reciprocal guard border
221.5 by 289cm.; 87 by 113 3/4in.
Formerly Wher Collection, Switzerland
The Chahar Bagh or four-fold garden, a design concept found in gardens throughout the Islamic world, concretizes the garden as an earthly paradise: within a walled enclosure, water splashes from fountains into pools where ducks play, and spills over into plant rimmed rills in which fish swim; criss-crossing the garden the rills enclose flower beds shaded by leafy trees. For further discussion of garden carpets and their development, please see Healy, Bruce, ‘The Jaipur Garden Carpet’, Hali Issue 171, Spring 2012, pp. 69-71; Grant Ellis, Charles, ‘Garden Carpets and their Relation to Safavid Gardens’, Hali Vol. 5 No. 1, 1982, pp. 10-17; Beidronska-Slota, Beata ‘A Garden Carpet in the National Museum, Cracow’, Hali Spring 1982, pp. 48-49.
The border found on this fragment appears to be unique amongst the extant examples of the genre: for a fragment with the same border and presumed from the same carpet, see Christie’s London, 15th October 1998, Lot 319.