2: IBERIAN & EAST MEDITERRANEAN CARPETS IN THE - Hali

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MUSEUM COLLECTIONS 9 The Milan circular Mamluk carpet, Cairo, Egypt, 16th century. 2.78 x 2.26m (9'1" x 7'1"). MIAQ, no.TE07 78 HALI ISSUE 157 Four circular carpets from Cairo are known. Three of them have Mamluk geometric designs: the Barbieri carpet in the Bruschettini Foundation, Genoa; the Olmutz carpet at Kremsier Castle in the Czech Republic; and the Milan carpet in the MIAQ. 80 The fourth, a later example in the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington has an Ottoman field design. 81 There is good evidence that round carpets were made for royal and imperial tents in Iran, India and China, and there is every reason to think that round Mamluk carpets were used the same way in Egypt. When they arrived in Europe, such carpets were used as table covers. The 1587 Medici archives in Florence mention a circular ‘cairino’ carpet, 82 and two ‘round Mamluks’ appear in the 1596 Innsbruck inventory of Grand Duke Ferdinand II of Austria, 83 who received one as a gift from the Medici court. 84 The round carpet in the MIAQ 7, 9 was probably made early in the second quarter of the 16th century. Its beauty lies in its rich colours (red, blue, green and yellow) and its lustrous pile, having survived in pristine condition for almost five centuries. The fact that all its original edges are still intact suggests that they were once bound with a tape or silk cloth. The other two Mamluk-style carpets in the MIAQ collection, a rather worn rug 10 and a small fragment from a large carpet 11, are both study pieces, acquired at auction in London in 1996 and 1998 respectively. 85 The rug, with a medallion and bands of cypresses and palm trees, was formerly in the Bernheimer Collection, Munich, while the fragment had appeared on the London market a number times since the early 1980s. It is unlikely that the MIAQ will be able to acquire a first period Mamluk carpet, but a few second period examples remain in private hands, and an early example would certainly be a strong addition to the two outstanding carpets already in the collection. 10 CAIRENE OTTOMAN <strong>CARPETS</strong> Almost a hundred rugs and carpets with floral designs survive from Cairene workshops. Scholars generally agree that the first Ottoman design rugs were made there. Ernst Kühnel tells us that “the connection with Mamluk rugs [is] undeniable, because of the similarity of the material... More important and even conclusive is the frequent mention of ‘Cairene’ rugs expressly called in French, German, Italian, and Spanish inventories of the XVIth-XVIIth centuries. Their beauty is repeatedly emphasised by comparison with the famous Persian carpets, and in some instances they are classified as ‘Turkish rugs from Cairo’.” 86 Despite this, some authors, including Kühnel, have conjectured that certain Ottoman court rugs, especially the finest niche rugs and related examples with similar structure may have been made somewhere closer to the court, in either Bursa or Istanbul. This suggestion was occasioned by a single document which refers to “...eleven rug masters of Cairo, mentioned by name, who had been ordered to the court of Constantinople in 1585, together with their load of wool…”. 87 Citing Kurt Erdmann, Kühnel proposed that these rug masters “most certainly had to run a manufactory working for the Turkish Sultan”, and that this factory was most probably located in Bursa. 88 This attempt to establish that Bursa was a rug producing centre in the latter part of the 16th century is based on two further 11 documents, one of 1474, the second in 1525 (which mentions six rug-makers and nine workmen). 89 In fact, the confusion dates back to the early 20th century when F.R. Martin described the Imperial Austrian Ottoman floral field niche rug, without evidence, as being from unspecified “Ottoman Imperial manufactories in Asia Minor”. 90 So when, in 1938, Erdmann published his 1585 reference to the Egyptian weavers arriving in Turkey, the attribution was adopted – unquestioned – by almost every subsequent carpet scholar. 91 In 1981, after a number of Ottoman carpets had been physically analysed and the ‘evidence’ reviewed, the proposed Turkish attribution was shown to be unsound. Examination of the twelve Ottoman carpets in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, as well as a large number of other examples in European public and private collections led Robert Pinner and me to conclude that: “The question, which of the known Ottoman floral carpets were produced in Turkey seemed at one time to be answered by the identification of two major groups: one, of relatively coarselywoven rugs with both the foundation and the pile in wool, and with its structure and colour closely related to Mamluk carpets, and a second group of more finely woven carpets, with silk warps and wefts, and with a pile consisting not only of wool but also white, and sometimes blue, cotton. The attribution of the latter group to ‘Istanbul’ or ‘Bursa’ appeared to be supported by the fact MUSEUM COLLECTIONS 10 The Bernheimer Mamluk rug with medallion and bands of cypress and palm trees. Cairo, Egypt, 16th century. 1.37 x 2.04m (4'6" x 6'8”). MIAQ, no.CA04. 11 Mamluk carpet fragment. Cairo, Egypt, 16th century. Field section, 0.49 x 1.91m (1'7" x 6'3"). MIAQ, no.CA06. HALI ISSUE 157 79
12 MUSEUM COLLECTIONS 12 The Hackwood Park Cairene Ottoman medallion carpet. Cairo, Egypt, 3rd quarter 16th century. 2.81 x 5.17m (9'3" x 17'0"). MIAQ, no.CA05. 13 The Bernheimer Ottoman medallion rug. Cairo, Egypt, 16th century. 1.32 x 1.91m (4'4" x 6'3"). MIAQ, no.CA63 14 The Muse East Mediterranean cartouche-border carpet (detail), Damascus, Syria, 15th or 16th century. MIAQ, no.TE14 80 HALI ISSUE 157 that both the silk and the cotton were Z-spun in a non-Egyptian manner. 92 The apparent contradiction, presented by the fact that the wool was mainly S-spun, i.e., as in Mamluk and ‘Cairene’ Ottoman carpets, was explained by adherents of this theory, by the suggestion that the pile wool was imported [into Turkey] from Egypt.” 93 Alberto Boralevi’s discovery of the two great Cairene carpets of the Medici in the warehouses of the Pitti Palace is of inestimable importance in this discussion. Of greater significance here even than the Medici Mamluk is the Ottoman carpet, also in excellent condition. 94 Boralevi writes of it: “As stated in the inventory, the Ottoman carpet was brought as a gift to the Grand Duke Fernando II in the year 1623 by the Admiral Da Verrazzano, possibly a descendant of the great navigator”, 95 and concludes: “The evidence of the Archives, which defines the Ottoman as Cairene, supports the theory… according to which all these carpets were manufactured in the same Egyptian workshops during the Ottoman Empire.” The 1623 inventory date of the Medici carpet provides the only reliable benchmark for dating Cairene Ottoman rugs. From its present-day appearance we may assume that it was new at the time of acquisition, and we may further assume that the workshops producing rugs of this type probably continued to do so throughout the 17th century. However, stylistically the Medici carpet marks the decline of the artistic tradition, and it is likely that several of the finer Ottoman niche rugs pre-date it. There is also some limited assistance to be drawn from tests of Mamluk and Ottoman carpet dyes performed by Mark Whiting in the 1980s, which 13 establish that the red dye in Mamluk rugs was mostly lac, 96 while of the two Ottoman carpets he tested, the red of one was lac, the other cochineal, which “…allows the possibility of using dyeanalysis to separate the Ottoman carpets into an earlier and a later group, with, of course, the usual reservations about the length of the period during which both dyes were used, and the uncertainty of the mid-point.” 97 It is possible that some Cairene Ottoman design rugs pre-date a few Mamluk design rugs. The Medici carpet, considered on stylistic grounds to be the latest known example of its type, from between 1557 and 1571, may suggest that Ottoman designs were being made in Cairo from at least the beginning of the third quarter of the 16th century, if not a little before. We may also assume that the earliest examples in the new Ottoman style were still quite similar to Mamluk rugs. 98 The very finely knotted silk-foundation niche rugs with highly refined designs may well have begun to be made by the latter part of the 16th century. There are two Cairene Ottoman carpets in the MIAQ collection. The finer of the two is a large carpet acquired at auction from the English country house Hackwood Park in 1998 11. It is very finely woven, with superb drawing and composition, 99 but while the wefts and warps are almost all original, there is hardly an original knot left on the carpet. The clarity of drawing and fine articulation of pattern strongly suggests that it pre-dates the Medici Ottoman carpet and can be ascribed to the beginning of the third quarter of the 16th century. Certainly the restoration followed the original pattern faithfully, so the Hackwood carpet remains a very good document of an Ottoman carpet pattern. The second Cairene Ottoman rug in the MIAQ 12, acquired at auction in London in 2004, was formerly in the Bernheimer family collection, having been acquired by Otto Bernheimer in 1919. 100 It belongs to a group of small-format rugs, several of which have exactly the same colours and dimensions as some of the small Mamluk-style rugs, and represent a continuum from the same workshops. While the pattern is reasonably clear, the drawing is not quite as refined as on the more finely knotted examples. The round green medallion and green quartered medallions in the corners are typical. At each end of the field are small circular half-medallions. The floral pattern in the background appears as a section from an endless repeat that disappears beneath the borders and medallions. The medallions also create the illusion of an infinite repeat design, a section of which is framed by the borders. Other workshops in Cairo produced small rugs, some very finely knotted with much crisper renderings of Ottoman floral designs, in particular a group of prayer rugs, several of which are on a silk foundation. Both Cairene Ottoman carpets in Doha should be viewed primarily as study pieces. However, there is every possibility that this area of the collection can be raised to the level of the Mamluk examples in the foreseeable future. MAMLUK-STYLE <strong>CARPETS</strong> FROM SYRIA Carpets must have been made in present-day Syria, the Levant and the upper reaches of the fertile valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers since antiquity. The majority of the people inhabiting this region were semi-nomadic pastoralists, and wool-pile carpets must have been part of their daily furnishings. Three thousand years ago the great cities of ancient Mesopotamia had stone ‘carpets’, which perhaps reflect the patterns on pile carpets that no longer survive. Five centuries later, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates and much of present-day Syria was ruled by the Persians. Their great empire was then conquered by the Greeks and later by the Romans, whose villas had mosaic floors that were probably covered with carpets in winter. Two thousand years ago, Syria was an important section of the ancient Silk Road that linked China to Greece and Rome. Knottedpile carpets with Greek mosaic designs have been found in Central Asia, and Chinese woven silks have been discovered in Syria, demonstrating that textiles travelled across the entire breadth of Asia, enabling new designs and ornaments from distant lands to be copied along the way. It is against this background that we should consider the origin of carpet designs in this region, some of which may derive from the patterns of floor tiles and woven silks. In the 7th century Syria, Iran and much of Central Asia was conquered by the Arabs, whose spiritual influence and knowledge of geometry continues to influence design to this day. The Mongol invasion in the 13th century carried with it Chinese and Central Asian patterns that are occasionally seen in Syrian carpet design. Our interest here lies in Syrian carpet design from the 15th to 17th centuries, and in particular the early part of that period, under Egyptian rule. In 1250, the Mamluks defeated the Ayyubid Empire in Egypt, and in 1260 advanced along the East Mediterranean coast to defeat the Mongol armies at Ayn Jalut, extending the Mamluk Sultanate to include Syria and southern Anatolia. They ruled this region for some 250 years until they were defeated by the Ottoman Turks in 1516. It was the Mamluk style that most powerfully influenced carpet making in Syria, and their influence, in particular in colouration, continued through the 17th century. So-called ‘Damascus’ carpets have a distinctive handle, weaving technique and colouration. The wool is generally Z-spun, while carpets made in Cairo tend to use S-spun wool. The pile is generally quite hairy, perhaps made of goat’s wool, and unlike Cairene carpets rarely has much sheen. The knot is for the most part asymmetric, in common with rugs from Cairo, central and eastern Iran, India and China. By contrast, Anatolian carpets tend to be symmetrically-knotted (this technique spreads beyond the MUSEUM COLLECTIONS HALI ISSUE 157 81 14
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2: IBERIAN & EAST MEDITERRANEAN CARPETS IN THE - Hali

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