Page 333 - Decorative Arts, Part II: Far Eastern Ceramics and Paintings, Persian and Indian Rugs and Carpets

later. The clumsy drafting in this carpet suggests that it NOTES
was woven no earlier than the mid-seventeenth century. 1. According to information supplied by the dealer Vitall
May H. Beattie speculated that the Indo-Persian Benguiat (letter of 29 March 1900 to Peter A. B. Widener in
Braganza Carpet (Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, NGA curatorial files), this carpet "was originally in the recep-
Lugano, Switzerland), and its companion may have been tion room of the palace of the Duke of Braganza in Lisbon"; he
ordered for the Lisbon palace of the duke of Braganza classified it as a '"Persian Ispahan' of the i6th century made by
the Royal Art Manufacturer. The designs and colors were drawn
sometime after he was elected to the throne of Portugal
in 1640, so this carpet may date from that time. 20 The by special artists, for a European gift."
Widener carpet's exact point of origin is unknown. Ellis, 2. Eisler 1977, 287, misidentifies the carpet as being Turkish.
a leading proponent of the theory that the Indo-Persian 3. Vitall Benguiat, nicknamed "the Pasha," was the most suc-
class had been made in India, tentatively attributed it, cessful antique Oriental carpet dealer in early twentieth-centu-
and some examples at the Philadelphia Museum of Art ry America. In addition to Widener, his clients consisted of such
that he considered "the more peculiarly Persian-looking wealthy collectors as Henry Clay Frick, Henry G. Marquand, J. P.
Morgan, and the architect Stanford White; see Towner and
of this class," to Agra, one of the cities where Akbar Varble 1970.
established karkhanas late in the sixteenth century. 21
Beattie, another subscriber to the Indian-origin theory, 4. Pope 1926, 55.
commented that "the establishment of carpet weaving by 5. Martin 1906-1908, 69-74; Bode and Kiihnel 1984, 114-124;
the Emperor Akbar was so well known that it seems to Pope 1938-1939, 3: 2358-2368; Erdmann 1960, 41-42, and
Dimand 1973, 67-72. Dimand nonetheless persisted in using the
have quite obscured the evidence of production in other
term "Isfahan," as he had previously done in Dimand 1972,
parts of the Indian sub-continent," and cited documen-
260-265.
tary evidence to prove that carpets had been woven at
22
Cambay in the west and Ellore in eastern India. These 6. Hendley 1905, 7-8.
are moot points, however, because at present there is no 7. Eiland 1979,145-163, outlined the group's complex problems
factual basis for believing that the Widener Arabesque of nomenclature and attribution and preferred the more spe-
Band Carpet was produced in India, and it may well have cific term "Indo-Herat."
been woven in Persia. 8. Dye analysis for identification purposes has been inconclu-
RWT sive. See Eiland 1979, 154, for his comments on conclusions
reached by Whiting 1978, 43.
9. Encyclopaedia Iranica 1990, 873. Spuhler 1987, 74,105, attrib-
uted the majority of the Indo-Persian group (he referred to
them as "spiral-tendril" or "vine scroll" carpets) to Persia, but
noted that copies were manufactured in India in the seven-
teenth and first half of the eighteenth century. See also the con-
temporary sources he cites to support their Persian origin in
"Carpets and Textiles" in Cambridge, Iran, 1968-1991, 711.
10. Indo-Persian Herat-type floral carpets were so popular in
England that they were imitated there; see the early seven-
teenth-century Strathmore carpet, auctioned at Sotheby's,
London, 17 April 1980, illustrated and discussed in Hali 2
(1980), 346-347.
11. For an albeit incomplete list of these paintings, see Ellis
1988, 22in. 10.

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