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Condition: moth damage

TECHNICAL ANALYSIS
Warp: silk, Z2S, light yellow, ivory

Weft: silk, Z, ivory, 3 shoots

Pile: wool, assymetrical knot open to the left

Density: 19-21 horizontal, 18-20 vertical

Sides: not present

Ends: not present

Colors: rose red, rose, apricot, yellow, light yellow, dark blue, mid-blue, light blue, blue-green, light green, beige, ivory, walnut

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Dimensions: approximately 1ft. 8in. by 1ft. 1in. (0.56 by 0.36m.)

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Provenance: PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTOR

Charles D. Kelekian

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Notes: The Ardabil carpet is undoubtedly the most famous weaving in the world and has been the subject of speculation and fascination since it first came to the attention of the general public in 1893 upon being accessioned by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (inv. no. 272-1893). See Ittig, Annette, "Historian's Choice, The Victoria & Albert Museum's 'Ardabil' Carpet", Hali, Issue 69, pp. 81-3 for an illustration. The Ardabil is so named for the supposed place of its origin, the Shrine at Ardabil. This may be where the carpet was discovered, or for where it was commissioned, however it is most likely that it was woven in the established Safavid workshops of Tabriz or Central Persia as it is signed "Maksoud of Kashan". In 1891 the firm of Vincent Robinson and Co. of London received the Ardabil carpet from Zeigler and Company, a Manchester based importer of Persian carpets. The carpet was billed as "The Holy Carpet of The Mosque at Ardabil" and placed on public exhibition. The exhibition was an enormous success and after receiving accolades from the British press such as "without any exaggeration...the finest Persian carpet in the world. This is the Holy Carpet of the Mosque of Ardebil, in Persia; a carpet which for size, beauty, condition, and authenticated age is entirely unrivalled by any known example" - The Times (London), see Stead, Rexford, The Ardabil Carpets, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, 1974, p. 32. At that time the importance of the carpet was seen to rely on three factors - the presence of an inscription dating the carpet to 946 AH (1539-40 AD) and therefore establishing its impressive age, its outstanding condition and its successful marketing as a singular marvel - the only one in existence - an unparalleled work of art. The poet, artist and designer William Morris became a champion for the carpet and lead a drive to raise GBP2,000 to acquire the carpet for the Victoria & Albert Museum. Morris described it as "a remarkable work of art...the design is of singular perfection...and its size and splendor as a piece of workmanship do full justice to the beauty and intellectual qualities of the design", see: Wearden, Jennifer, "The Ardabil carpet, The Early Repairs, Hali, Issue 80, 1995, p. 107.

Unexpectedly in June of 1903, the Museum was offered a 4-inch square fragment by a Mr. Malayantz who claimed to know the whereabouts of other Ardabil fragments in Persia. Although the Museum decided to ignore the fact it became increasingly apparent that a second Ardabil carpet was in existence. This carpet, currently in the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (inv. no. 272.1893), (see: Wearden (op. cit.), no. 2) has been reduced in length and, in the four years preceding the launch of the London Ardabil in 1893, was cannibalized in order that large sections could be inserted into its pair in order to present one "complete" carpet, rather than two damaged carpets. Approximately eighteen small fragments from the pair, such as the one offered here, were the remnants of this extensive restoration work and are now represented in collections such as the Rietberg Museum in Zurich, the Burrell Collection, Glasgow and the Teppichhaus Carl Hopf in Stuttgart (Erdmann, Kurt, Seven Hundred Years of Carpets, London, 1970, p.32). Others are in the Textile Museum in Washington, D. C., the Asia Institute at Shiraz, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Fragments from the 'Ardabil' carpet that have appeared at auction include a border cartouche, lot 485, Sotheby's London, April 12, 1989 (withdrawn before the auction) and a border roundel formerly in the possession of Eric Binns, lot 9, Sotheby's London, October 14, 1977.

In 1892 Vincent Robinson and Company sold the Los Angeles carpet to the infamous American collector, Charles Tyson Yerkes for the remarkable sum of $80,000 with the sole condition that the carpet would never be returned to England (see Mumford, John Kimberley, The Yerkes Collection of Oriental Carpets, London, New York, 1910, pl. XXVII). At the American Art Association sale of the Yerkes Estate in New York during 1910 the carpet was purchased by Joseph Raphael De Lamar. At the De Lamar Estate sale in 1919, also held by the American Art Association, the carpet passed to Joseph Duveen and quickly became one of his proudest personal possessions. Although Duveen refused to sell the carpet, he graciously lent it to the celebrated 1931 Exhibition of Persian Art held at Burlington House in London. Finally the public were able to see the carpet whose existence had been so carefully concealed. It was the sensation of the exhibition. In 1938 Duveen finally capitulated to seven years of entreaties from J. P. Getty, and the threat of imminent war in Europe, and sold him the carpet which Getty donated to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1953.

This fragment is most likely to have come from the Los Angeles Ardabil as its structure resembles it more closely. According to Stead (op. cit.) p. 17, the Los Angeles carpet averages 19-20 knots per horizontal inch whereas the London carpet has 17-18 and the current fragment has 19-21. The fragment would probably have come from the upper left hand quadrant of the carpet, being composed of a section of the yellow ground spandrel, beneath an area of the rose red ground inner guard stripe, below a section of the ivory ground cloudband-filled inner guard border, and with a small section of a rose red ground half-cartouche from the main border