Lot 216

ORIENTAL ANATOLIAN CARPET

Hand-knotted wool carpet on a wool warp. The high-quality hand-spun wool used in these carpets is renowned even in Turkey itself, and the iconography of these pieces has remained largely unchanged for several centuries. Preserved pieces from the 18th and 19th centuries differ in color and detail, but the basic pattern remains the same. This example has a typical inner and outer oleander border featuring stars, rosettes, small triangles, and diagonally placed oleander flowers. The wide main border features chestnut-colored motifs of a stylized dragon, which once captivated Ottoman artists in imported Chinese art (especially on silk and porcelain) and whose stylization in the Islamic environment took on a highly abstract form. However, as in China, the dragon was regarded as a very powerful protector of happiness and life. Stylized dragons alternate with a motif surrounded by white contours, reminiscent of a dwarf cycad, but in the Anatolian environment symbolizing the matriarchal motif of a woman with her hands on her hips (the so-called “elibelinde”), which represents, among other things, fertility and the sanctity of motherhood. The carpet with central cross medallions also features a spiky “pitrak” (“thistle”) motif - long ago, this symbol was probably solar in nature, but over the centuries it has been reinterpreted, and today it is understood in newer Turkish carpets as an element that protects human happiness.