Page 322 - Decorative Arts, Part II: Far Eastern Ceramics and Paintings, Persian and Indian Rugs and Carpets

are ill-drawn and mismatched; there is a lack of intricacy NOTES
and spacial quality; and imprecise draftsmanship is 1. Arthur Upham Pope to Edith A. Standen, 28 May 1941 (in
evident in the field's scrolling vine network, the compo- NGA curatorial files); the file contains other letters in which the
sition's generally stiff appearance, and the reduction in conservation procedure was discussed.
size of the arabesques and palmettes in the upper border. 2. The Seley carpet (no. 1978.550) is illustrated in Hali 3, no. i
Many of these characteristics are typical of the medal- (1980), 15, fig. 9; the other carpet is illustrated in Islamic Works
lion, animal, and tree sub-group that Klose dated to the of Art, Carpets and Textiles (Sotheby's, London, 12-13 October
early seventeenth century, at which time the Widener 1982, 58-59, lot no. 47).
carpet was likely woven. The possibility that it is repre- 3. Herat was captured by the Safavids in 1510, but retaken by
sentative of a lower quality of Herat weavings cannot be the Uzbeks in 1528-1529, at which time many Herati artisans
excluded. The problem is far from resolved. However, were forcibly transported to Bukhara.
despite its relative shortcomings and the ravages of age, 4. Eiland 1979,160. Gans-Ruedin 1978, 98, believed that Herat
this carpet's brilliant colors and dynamic animal forms had unduly monopolized scholars' attention, and suggested
remain sufficiently striking to impress the contemporary that these carpets had been made at the important East Persian
viewer, much as similar examples of its class once exert- pilgrimage center Mashhad.
ed a profound influence on the Indian Mughal artists 5. No. T 8334, illustrated in Sarre and Trenkwald 1926-1928, i:
who designed the Scenic Animal Rug (1942.9.475). pis. 6-8; no. 43.121.1, illustrated in Dimand 1973,140-141, fig. 76.
RWT Because the Metropolitan Museum's carpet bears an inscrip-
tion along its inner guard border that ends in a laudation of the
Shah, it is presumed that the pair had originally been made for
Tahmasp.
6. Dimand 1973, 53, noted that many of the floral motifs found
in Herat carpets were derived from Chinese models, and they
appear frequently in fifteenth-century Timurid manuscript
paintings and bookbindings from Herat. Later, in "Safavid
Textiles and Rugs," in Ettinghausen 1979, 293, Dimand identified
"large fan-shaped palmettes and composite leaves with serrated
outlines, rendered in brilliant colors" as "the most conspicuous
motives of the Herat group of rugs;" he also noted the Seljuq use
of similar animated scrollwork, which became a common fea-
ture of twelfth- and thirteenth-century inlaid bronzes from the
Khorassan province. For a full discussion of the transmission
and evolution of Chinese derived floral motifs, see Rawson 1984.
7. For examples of the pinhole and pounced tracings used by
Persian miniaturists, see Robinson 1965, pis. 46, 48; or
Robinson et al. 1976, pis. 51, 52.
8. For a discussion of the border type and a list of other exam-
ples, see Ellis 1965, 44-46.
9. No. 0.311, illustrated in King and Sylvester 1983, no. 74; no. T
601.1894, illustrated in Kendrick 1915, pi. 4 (detail).

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