A SMALL MOGHUL "IN-AND-OUT PALMETTE" CARPET, NORTH INDIA

The carpet designs of 17th century Mughul India were initially indebted to the models created in Safavid Persia in the 16th and early 17th century, re-interpreted through an Indian sensibility and incorporating locally relevant imagery. Mughul carpets were classified into three primary groups by Dimand and Mailey, see Dimand, M.S. and Mailey, J., Oriental Rugs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1973, p. 119. 'Paradise Garden' or 'Hunting' carpets which derived from Safavid weavings with animals; those that referenced miniature paintings and textiles incorporating pictorial and figural scenes and then those which were based on the spiral vine and in-and-out palmette carpets of central Persia. It is this latter type which provided the original inspiration for the small carpet offered here. Whilst the overall layout of the palmettes and vinery is very similar to the contemporaneous Persian carpets, the long curving wisteria-like racemes and the ton-sur-ton treatment found particularly in the rose-pink floral motifs is very typically Mughal.