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Samuel Collection (9 March 1994, lot 71, HALI 75, p.128). Comparisonsinclude Burns, The Caucasus,Traditions in Weaving, pl.17, with a similar pink-on-red border, and pl.8 in Koge, Caucasian Rugs in Private Danish Collections, 1974. Among white-ground examples are Bennett, Caucasian, pl.412, and Skinner, 20 April 1996, lot 212, both with bat-like palmettes. Describing a Shirvan with similar palmettes (Caucasian, pl.243), Bennett calls them ‘lotus’ palmettes, noting that they are also found on several groups of Persian tribal weavings, and that the Baluch call them ‘bouquets’.

PERSIA

packed design lacks the breadth and monumental grandeur of the early 16th century medallion carpets from Tabriz, and in carpets of the Silk Kashan group (third quarter 16th century) the field elements are more spaciously organised. The elegant cartouche and lobed roundel border however does much to counterbalance the dense field arrangement, providing a monumental solemnity that adds to the carpet’s allure. Undoubtedly the work of a great master and attributable to Khorasan for its jufti-knotting, this carpet fetched the second highest ever auction price for a classical oriental carpet, the highest being the $2,490,540 paid by Sheikh Saud al Thani of Qatar at CLO in July 1999 for the 16th century Rothschild Tabriz medallion carpet, which now looks like a real bargain.

| Khorasan Carpet (detail) Late 16th century 3.43 x 8.32m (11'3" x 27'4") Sotheby’s New York, Safra Collection 3 November 2005, lot 160 Est: $500-700,000 Sold for: $2,032,000 Acquired from the Frank Michaelian Estate at SNY in 1980 for $198,000 (HALI 3/3, p.252), the Safra Khorasan carpet is a splendid example of late 16th/early 17th century Safavid carpet production. Its superb condition, freshness of colours and minutely detailed fauna, flora and arabesque design make it, as SNY rightly emphasised, the quintessential image of the otherwordly ‘Paradeison’, or Paradise Garden, that awaits the devout Muslim. At the same time a certain stiffness in the field might argue for an early 17th century date rather than Sotheby’s attribution to the 16th century. The tightly

| Safavid Silk Textile Fragment Late 16th/early 17th century 0.53 x 0.34m (1'9" x 1'1") Sotheby’s, London 12 October 2005, lot 89 Est: £15-20,000 Sold for: £18,000 ($31,500) Despite condition problems this beautiful silk textile is a remarkable example of a rare type. It was poorly catalogued by Sotheby's, who overlooked another fragment (showing only one figure) in the Keir Collection (Spuhler 1978, no.109, p.190) which was acquired in Paris in 1973. Less than half the size of the SLO silk, its condition is directly comparable (the same tear runs from the belt to the end of the gown worn by the figure). The chaos of Muhammad Khudabanda’s reign (1577-87) led to declining demandfor lavishly illustrated albums, so artists turned to the

production of manuscripts, often poetry, with fewer illustrations, often drawings of great charm, depicting elegant single figures. Some of the most delightful are by Riza-yi ‘Abbasi, the most talented artist at the court of Shah ‘Abbas I (r.158729). Working first in Qazvin in the late 1580s, he moved with the court to Esfahan in 1598. The move heralded an era of prosperity and stability, in which the arts could flourish. A new class of dandy emergedand Riza continued to portray these beautiful young men, in a manner much emulated by other artists, which spilled over into textile design. This textile has a repeat of foppish, single figures, in the style of Riza. They wear the latestfashion, which included a small hat with a turned back, split brim. Hats seemed to have been significant sartorial items at the time, as Riza used quite a variety in his work, often with the brim turned back at a jaunty angle. Like many of his subjects, each of the young blades on this silk is portrayed with a bent head, and with rather feminine, rounded hips. The figures show the Safavid tendency to elongate the human form. Each age group is depicted differently in Safavid art, the younger men having long wisps of hair framing chubby cheeks, their elders sporting splendid moustaches, the width of their turbans, or neatly trimmed full beards. Here there are long, tightly coiled ringlets that are also found on a textile with pairs of seated figures wearing turbans: one is in the Gulbenkian Collection, Lisbon (HALI 114, p.94), while the Detroit Institute of Arts has another fragment, but with only one figure (Weibel, Two Thousand Years of Textiles, no.138).Safavid figural silks from the ‘high’ period of Persian textile art are so rare that a high price is almost inevitable, although the present lot could and perhaps should have gone for a lot more.

| Persian Velvet Panel 18th century 1.15 x 1.68m (3'9" x 5'6") Christie’s South Kensington 14 October 2005, lot 508 Est: £15-18,000 Sold for: £18,000 ($31,500) Variations of this design are known, but this piece, said to have been in the 1931 Burlington House exhibition of Persian art, has perhaps the most familiar, with beturbanned figures seated between cypress trees and stylised plants each supporting a brace of duck – all arranged in a formal grid. Some examples include scantily clad female figures seated somewhat immodestly, leading to a sneaking suspicion that their appeal may be of a more prurient kind. Velvets of this group have been steady sellers over the years, despite a certain sterility to the rigid pattern repeat, and they usually make good prices.

| Southwest (?) Persian Carpet (detail) 18th century 1.48 x 2.96m (4'10" x 9'9") Nagel, Stuttgart 8 November 2005, lot 167 Est: €4,000 Sold for: €14,630 ($17,715) Nagel might have made more of this intriguing and lovely 18th century Persian village carpet with a repeat

ing lozenge lattice design framed by a cypress tree border reminiscent of contemporaneous garden carpets, which is arguably one of the ‘missing’ (or largely unrecognised) Zand period weavings. They failed to note that the same carpet had been published by Ulrich Schürmann (Oriental Carpets, London 1966, p.39),attributed to “Shiraz, about 1700”. Their chosen comparison was the nearly identical carpet exhibited at the 1978 Munich ICOC, attributed to “Shiraz, 1st half 18th century” (Spuhler, König, Volkmann, pl.34 = Grote Hasenbalg, Der Orientteppich III, 1922, pl.62, assigned to “Joshegan,north-central Persia, 18th century”). Nor did they refer to its reappearancein the much more recent article by Tom Cook and Sumru Krody putting forward the southwest Persian Zand period attribution in respect of a related rug in the TM (HALI 131, pp.8892), which cites other comparisons, including a rug sold at Lefevre in 1982. Another very similar carpet, consigned by the musician Adam Clayton and catalogued as 18th century northwest Persian, failed to sell, estimated £8,000 at CSK in November 2004.

| Heriz Silk Carpet Second half 19th century 1.43 x 1.85m (4'8" x 6'1") Christie’s London 13 October 2005, lot 75 Est: £25-35,000 Sold for: £66,000 ($115,500) Scrolling split-leaf arabesques are among the best executed designs in the 19th century Persian repertoire, echoing their

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