Persian
Rugs: The O'Connell Notes |
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Safavid Silk and Metal Boucle' Velvet Panel
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Arts of the Islamic World Sale: D09004 | Location: Doha Auction Dates: Session 1: Thu, 19 Mar 09 8:00 PM LOT 301 A SAFAVID VOIDED SILK VELVET, METAL THREAD STRIP AND BOUCLÉ FIGURAL PANEL, PERSIA 250,000—350,000 USD Lot Sold. Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 3,442,500 USD measurements the textile approximately 74 by 107cm.at widest point, overall dimensions including mount approximately 81 by 113cm. Description early 17th century mounted on silk, stretcher support |
TECHNICAL ANALYSIS
Pile: supplementary warp silk cut loop velvet, ivory,
beige, light silver grey, pale salmon, pale rose pink,
coral, pale yellow, golden yellow, grass green, mauve,
crimson, sky blue, midnight blue, dark walnut (mainly
oxidised), 14 colours
Ground fabric:
Warps: pale coral silk, Z-spun, 5 warps between pile
loops, each group of warps over two groups of wefts
Wefts: three shoots, one warp pale yellow silk, unspun,
flanked by coral silk, Z-spun
Supplementary wefts: pale gold, rose or coral silk,
S-plied with flat silver gilt metal strip; one pair
supplementary wefts between each supplementary cut velvet
weft , twill bound facing every 12th warp
Bouclé: ivory silk, S-plied, wrapped flat silk metal
strip
Selvedges: mainly extant, approximately 11mm. wide apple
green silk twill
The figures woven horizontally
PROVENANCE
Private collection since at least 1917
CATALOGUE NOTE
With its graceful drawing, brilliant colours, and
meticulous execution of a very complex structure, the
panel offered here is one of the finest examples of
Safavid textile art. Employing voided silk velvet
enriched with metal thread and bouclé in a highly
detailed composition, this panel is comparable with
velvets in some of the most prestigious museums and
collections around the world. The present piece depicts
two lavishly-dressed lady falconers, identical in design
to a panel in the Keir Collection; see Friedrich Spuhler,
Islamic Carpets and Textiles in the Keir Collection,
London, 1978, p. 184. In the offered lot we see much of
its vivid and diverse colouring, whereas the Keir
Collection velvet has faded and possibly sustained some
fire damage, see Spuhler, ibid, p. 189. Two larger pieces
show this pair of women falconers as well as additional
pair of women bearing fruit and drink, one in the
Cooper-Hewitt Museum, and one in the Royal Ontario Museum
in Toronto, see respectively Carol Bier, Woven from the
Soul, Spun from the Heart, Washington, D.C., 1987, no. 2,
pp.140-141, and Hali, 42, p. 100. Spuhler, op.cit. p.189
and Bier, op.cit. p. 140 mention, but do not illustrate,
an additional piece with this composition in the National
Museum of India in New Delhi. The present lot is here
published for the first time, having been in a family
collection from before 1917.
The composition of elegantly attired figures can be found
in other Persian velvets, such as a group with pairs of
women holding flowers in a vertical repeat, and
surrounded by flowering shrubs of similar drawing to
those in the velvet offered here. Three examples of this
composition are published, one sold Sotheby's New York,
December 11, 1991, lot 87, now in the Museum of Islamic
Art in Qatar, see Jon Thompson, Silk, Doha, 2004, p. 40,
another in the Keir Collection, see Spuhler, op. cit.,
pp. 183 and 188 and another in the Royal Ontario Museum
in Toronto, see Kahlenberg, M., "A Mughal Personage
Velvet," Burlington Magazine, 115, November 1973,
pl. 22. While the languid figures, elegant long robes,
and delicately pointed shoes are typical of the Safavid
fashion, the small hats and the deep necklines of their
bodices indicate the presence of European influences.
Such foreign influences were common in Persia at the
time, when stimuli from both western and eastern cultures
were welcome at the Safavid court. European influences
became particularly strong in the 1600s, when European
artists visited the royal courts in Isphahan and when
Shah Abbas II sent some of his court painters to Rome to
study Italian art, see Spuhler, op. cit., p. 188.
Falconry and hunting, favorite pastimes of the Persian
elite, were much-preferred subjects among Safavid artists
and appeared in many media from textiles to miniatures.
The topic was so common with weavers that it even gave
rise to a particular rug type, the hunting carpet. A type
of hunting, falconry was particularly appreciated for
"its protocol, the detailed training and grooming of
the birds, the merits of the various species, and the
thrill of the hunt," see Bier, op. cit., no. 10, p.
154. Both Persian and western accounts described Safavid
fascination with falconry that was not only seen as a
popular pastime but also a symbol of sophistication and
wealth. In his book, Travels in Persia, Thomas Herbert
gave a vivid depiction of the colourful entourage of a
Persian lord. According to Herbert, the train included
"thirty comely youths, who were vested in crimson
satin coats; their tulipants were silk and silver... they
were girded with rich hilted swords in embroidered
scabbards; they had hawks upon their fists, each hood set
with stones of value," see Thomas Herbert, Travels
in Persia, 1627-1629, London, 1928, p. 79. Later in his
book, Herbert praised falcons for their role in the hunt
and notes that these birds were used more effectively
than dogs, see ibid., p. 243. A velvet fragment in the
collection of the Textile Museum in Washington, D.C., see
Bier op. cit., no 10, p. 155, and sections of the
Rosenborg Velvets, see Carol Bier, The Persian Velvets at
Rosenborg, Copenhagen, 1995, p. 38, show male falconers
dressed in a fashion similar to that described by Herbert
in his journals; long robes tied with wide sashes, now
called Polish sashes, and wearing turbans. Its
traditional Persian representations suggest that falconry
was considered an activity for men, and thus it is
interesting to see two female falconers depicted in the
lot offered here. Just like their male counterparts in
other velvets, the two ladies here are equipped with the
general fittings for the hunt, such as pigeon wings tied
around their waists used as lures and the cord and hood
for the falcon. The small dog led on a leash by one of
the women is the only detail that is not included in
representations of male falconers. Spuhler suggests that,
as a result of the above-mentioned European influences,
the ladies are an allegory of the hunt, similar to the
goddess Diana, and were adapted from western culture, see
Spuhler, op. cit., p.189. The aforementioned panel in the
Cooper-Hewitt Museum is intact at its sides and shows a
complete horizontal repeat displaying another pair of
ladies tending a garden. As each woman is engaged in a
different activity, they could be understood as
allegories of the four seasons; a regular theme in
western art. However, as falconry was an activity
reserved for the elite, another reason to depict two
elegant ladies dressed in lavish garbs as falconers,
might have simply been a desire from the artist to
further stress the sophistication and status of the
women. Whatever the meaning, the theme must have been a
popular one with surviving examples of this design
executed in different colors. The foliage surrounding the
two huntresses includes a range of flowers depicted in
great detail. The willowy carnations and irises, along
with some of the more stylized palmette motifs, were
executed with the same care as the figures, showing that
the weaver was determined to produce a piece that was
exquisite in every detail. These floral motifs are
closely related to flora adorning two velvet panels in
the Danish Museum of Decorative Arts, see Bier, The
Persian Velvets at Rosenborg, p. 37. The cloudband-like
formations in the upper right corner of the image reflect
Chinese influences that were, as mentioned before,
prevalent in Safavid art.
The attention to subtle details, such as the folds of the
drapery, recalls miniatures rather than other brocades or
carpets. The technique of these velvets of extremely fine
weave enabled the art of the miniaturist to be most
successfully translated into a textile. All of the
velvets cited and the lot offered here illustrate
characteristics of painted images by contemporaneous
Persian artists. It has been suggested that these velvets
exhibit stylistic hallmarks of one particular Safavid
painter, Reza Abbasi, whose oeuvre contains predominantly
small-scale single page paintings which were assembled in
albums of miniatures, or muraqqa, and collected and
admired by contemporaneous patrons, see Spuhler, op.
cit., p. 187. In fact, two of the vertically oriented
velvets (those in Qatar and Ontario) bear the signature
"work (of) Safi" which may refer to Shafi
'Abbasi, the son of Reza who followed his father as a
miniature artist to the court. The elongated forms
executed in gentle lines and precise drawing echo such
works of Reza and his son. Similarly to his pieces on
paper, the composition of the current velvet is
structured with defined images superimposed on a blank
background. The crisp yet naturalistic folds of the
ladies' garments, along with their gentle facial
expressions, are also typical to Reza Abbasi's hand. The
brilliant colours of these velvets echo those miniatures;
see Arthur Upham Pope ed., A Survey of Persian Art,
London and New York, 1939, p. 2104.
Textiles, and particularly silk velvets, were among the
most treasured objects in Safavid Persia. According to
travel journals, the cities of Yazd, Isphahan, Kashan and
Tabriz were centers of the silk industry, with the most
important court manufactories located in Isphahan. Luxury
fabrics from Persia had a solid reputation throughout the
known world. In Europe, Safavid silk velvets were
much-admired for their very high-quality construction,
detailed design, luxurious material, and overall exotic
appearance. Members of the European elite were not the
only admirers of Safavid textiles, and Asian monarchs,
such as the King of Siam, also tried to acquire Persian
silks in great quantities, see Patricia L. Baker, Islamic
Textiles, London, 1995, p. 109. Due to the prestige of
their textile art abroad, Persian rulers often sent silk
velvets as diplomatic gifts to western courts. The most
famous examples of such presents are the aforementioned
Rosenborg Velvets and a piece originally given to the
Signoria of Venice, now in the Museo Civico Correr, see
Spuhler, op. cit., p. 164. Velvets gifted for political
reasons were always of the highest quality and were made
of the finest materials, such as silk enriched with gold
and silver foil, to demonstrate the wealth and
sophistication of the seventeenth-century Persian court.
While in Europe lengths of these precious textiles were
often kept intact in order to fully impress the western
onlooker, such as was the case of the Rosenborg velvets,
in Persia velvets were utilized in various ways. Large
panels were sometimes used to construct ceremonial tents,
while others were cut and made into items of clothing,
often without preserving the symmetry of the composition.
A velvet coat with figures, executed in a similar manner
as those in the current piece is in the Royal Armory,
Stockholm, see Pope, op. cit., p. 1060.
The velvet panel offered here is an extraordinary example
of Persian textile art from an era when woven treasures
were among the most appreciated and revered forms of
artistry. Safavid figural velvets rarely appear on the
market with the most recent one having been sold
Sotheby's London, October 14, 1998, lot 37 and now in the
Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar, see Thompson, op. cit.,
p. 36. The extraordinary state of preservation, the
outstandingly high quality of craftsmanship, as well as
its beauty and rarity, make this velvet one of most
sophisticated weavings ever achieved and one of the true
masterpieces produced by the workshops of the Safavid
court.
JBOC Note: I am a little confused by the attribution to the early 17th century. The clothes seem appropriate to a little later date. The hats are the key to the question, I would have dated these hats to at least the middle part of the century. I will have to dig out my images and see if I can date this style a little better. Still my general rule in matters such as this is to trust Sotheby's except when the evidence otherwise is compelling. On the suggestion of attributions to Reza Abbasi or his son Safi I find the weight of evidence far less then compelling. Reza Abbasi frequently painted fabrics with a distinctive pleated fold particularly in scarves. That there are folds in the fabric is almost meaningless since they are not the work of Reza Abbasi or even particularly close to his style. Obviously one would not attribute all paintings where a woman smiles to Leonardo da Vinci on the basis of that the Mona Lisa (La Gioconda) is a woman who smiles.
At the risk of seeming overly picky I fail to see a Safavid style chinese influenced CoundBand in the upper right. I have a copy of Friedrich Spuhler, Islamic Carpets and Textiles in the Keir Collection, London, 1978. I will have to reread it since the characterization of Spuhler's work raises more questions than it resolves.