
Enrica Medugno
Senior Sale Coordinator


£2,000 - £3,000
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Senior Sale Coordinator

Head of Department
Provenance
Private UK collection.
Inscriptions: Qur'an, chapter II (al-baqarah), most of verse 255; The basmalah; Qur'an, chapter XXVII (al-naml), verse, 31; Qur'an, chapter VI (al-an'am), parts of verse 83; a saying ('Graces continue by being grateful'); Qur'an, chapter I, (al-fatihah) verse 2; Qur'an, chapter XXIV (al-nur), parts of verse 35; Attributes of God; 'God is Most Great, the Great', 'The Prophet, peace be upon him said'.
For a comparable prayer rug with a "Sultan's Head" mihrab design and a similar patchwork arrangement of Arabic text cartouches, see a silk Kashan prayer rug sold at the Fine European and Oriental Carpets sale at Christie's New York in December 1994 (Lot 172). Christie's attributes this rug to Central Persia and the first half of the 20th century.
The "Sultan's Head" mihrab was a signature design motif of the Armenian workshops of Kumkapi, Ottoman Istanbul, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This distinctive mihrab design was particularly popularized by the Armenian master weaver and Ottoman court cartoonist Zareh Penyamin. This prayer rug may be a twentieth century Kashan workshop's adaptation of the iconic Kumkapi design. An original Kumkapi "Sultan's Head" prayer rug from approximately 1910 signed by Zareh was sold in the Christie's Oriental Rugs and Carpets sale in October 2005.
Please note that this carpet is Turkish and not Iranian as stated in the catalogue.