Page 112 - 2021 April 1, ART OF THE ISLAMIC AND Indian Worlds Including Oriental Rugs, Christie's London

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A WEST ANATOLIAN SAF FRAGMENT would go on to become Majnun) meeting for the first time at a mosque
PROBABLY USHAK, LATE 17TH/EARLY 18TH CENTURY school. The ground is adorned with two saf carpets, each with two rows of
Unevenly worn, with some holes, irregular shaped ends, lined and backed polychrome mihrabs with a mosque lamp suspended from the apex.
7ft. x 3ft.6in. (215cm. x 110cm.)
One of the larger examples preserved today is in the Al-Sabah Collection,
£8,000-12,000 US$12,000-17,000 Kuwait (inv.no. LNS 34R), and a comparable fragment to this was sold in
€9,300-14,000 these Rooms, 25 September 2007, lot 426. The Al-Sabah carpet, displays
two rows of mihrabswith a comparable red ground to the present lot and
Multi-niche prayer rugs, or safs, have a long tradition of furnishing mosques
similarly drawn flowering blossoms and palmettes in the spandrels, although
to accommodate large gatherings of worship. Only very few complete safs
each compartment is adorned with a hanging mosque lamp.
are known today and many have rather survived in fragmentary form, such
as the present example. The earliest depiction of a saf carpet is in a fifteenth The layout of the present rug is more similar to a fragment with an
century Timurid manuscript of the Khamsa of Nizami in the Metropolitan alternating red and green plain ground said to come from the Ulu Cami
Museum of Art, New York (1994.232.4) which shows Layla and Qais (who (Great Mosque) of Bursa in western Anatolia which sold in these Rooms,
10 April 2008, lot 206 (see Christopher Alexander, A Foreshadowing of 21st
Century Art, New York and Oxford, 1993, pp.308-309, and Walter Denny,
The Classical Tradition in Anatolian Carpets, Washington D.C., 2002, p.115,
no.50, for an almost identical, but smaller, fragment). The fragments share
an arrangement of alternating larger and smaller niches, the larger displaying
the triple cusped arch spandrels. Each is drawn with simplified columns with
flaring capitals and meandering scroll guard stripes.

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE PARISIAN COLLECTION
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A 'TRANSYLVANIAN' DOUBLE NICHE RUG
WEST ANATOLIA, SECOND HALF 17TH CENTURY
Even overall wear, scattered areas of repiling, re-selvaged, each end partially
rewoven along outer minor stripe
4ft.11in. x 4ft.5in. (148cm. x 135cm.)
£6,000-8,000 US$8,500-11,000
€7,000-9,200
PROVENANCE:
Anon sale, Christie's, London, 2 October 2012, lot 49
'Transylvanian' rugs are part of a clearly defined group which vary in design,
layout and colouring but are still immediately recognisable due to a relatively
small range of motifs and colours. Although the majority have provenance
that traces them back to Transylvania, it is clear that they are of Anatolian
origin, partly because of the lack of any proof of a local production and partly
because the structure is consistent with other Anatolian weavings.

For full lot details see christies.com
103

110 In addition to the hammer price, a Buyer’s Premium (plus VAT) is payable. Other taxes and/or an Artist Resale Royalty
fee are also payable if the lot has a tax or λ symbol. Check Section D of the Conditions of Sale at the back of this catalogue.