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Medallion carpet
1520-30
© R.M.N./H. Lewandowski
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| Technical information |
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Medallion carpet
1520-30
Usak region, Anatolia, Turkey
Warp, woof, and velvet, 2500 symmetrical knots per square decimeter
L. 5.48 m; W. 2.62 m
Purchased 1995
MAO 959
Islamic Art
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| Author(s) |
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| Christine Gayraud |
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Medallion carpet |
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The oldest existing Turkish carpets date to the thirteenth century. Until the sixteenth century, carpet decoration consisted of repeating motifs, and this tradition was continued in the so-called "Holbein" and "Memling" carpets. Court carpets, such as this Oushak medallion carpet, were based on designs supplied by calligraphers and illuminators.
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Delicacy and power
The colors, few in number, combine the delicacy of three tones of blue and ivory and a powerful red into a particularly harmonious ensemble. These colors are characteristic of this type of carpet, in which the ground is traditionally red or - much more rarely - dark blue, as is the case here. There are many examples of red-ground carpets, but only fifteen with blue grounds are known to exist, a number that includes fragments of carpets.
The border pattern is of interest because it allows us to date the piece. There are some similarities with a carpet with braided pseudo-Kufic script, from a group of five Usak carpets thought to be the oldest in existence. However, only the base of the script has survived, and the knot, in a less rigid version, is here replaced by a lotus flower. The knot in question is omnipresent between 1510 and 1520, a detail that allows us to date the Louvre carpet to the period immediately following this, starting in 1520.
A new aesthetic
A large, rich red mandorla stands out from the ground. It is prolonged by fleurons, ringed by alternating lambrequins and Chinese collarettes, and covered in arabesques interspersed with large fleurons. Along the central longitudinal axis, the motif continues toward both top and bottom by the beginnings of similar oval medallions, thus creating a continuous axial decoration.
Along the edges, four secondary lavender blue and royal blue medallions with stars are three-fourths visible. They appear to be in the process of fission, an impression made by the internal division that radiates outward from the center, and by the expansion of their cut-out edges, in imitation of Chinese collarettes that encroach on the dark ground lightened by florets.
All these motifs are derived from the art of manuscript illumination in fifteenth-century Timurid Iran. The designers working in the imperial library at Edirne, and later in the Nakkashane workshop in Istanbul, would take them up and use them to create a new aesthetic - the Ottoman.
The composition, characteristic of large Usak medallion or star carpets, could radiate out indefinitiely, were it not for the borders. In organizing the designs in this way, the aesthetic makes a profound break with a long tradition of Anatolian carpets decorated with stylized and repetitive motifs, each considered a separate entity in itself.
Carpets and the West
During the sixteenth century, the Usak region in western Anatolia became a center for the production of large court carpets of this kind. In Europe, Usak court carpets were much sought-after, particularly in Germany, and it appears that they were copied in Poland.
These luxury items featured in many paintings. The oldest known example is a painting of the Family of Henry VIII, at Sudeley, circa 1570. Vermeer, Ter Broch, Zurbaran, and Velasquez also depicted carpets in their paintings.
Turkish carpets, which were much admired in Europe from the sixteenth century on, were named after the painter most given to depicting them in his work. For this reason, they are known in the West as "Lotto", "Holbein", or "Memling" carpets.
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Nouvelles acquisitions, Arts d'Islam, 1988-2001, Paris, Editions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, 2002, n 88, pp. 145-146.
Makariou Sophie, "Tapis à décor de médailllons", in Revue du Louvre, 1995, vol. 5-6, p.112.
Gilles Roland, "Le soleil proposé en énigme : regards sur le tapis ouchak à médaillons (XVIe siècle) du musée du Louvre", in Revue du Louvre, octobre 1997, pp. 98-108.
Portraits of Kings Henri VIII, Hali, 1983, vol.3, pp. 175-181
Spuhler Friedrich, "Star, médaillon and double-niche ushaks", Islamic carpets and textiles in the Keir collection, Londres, 1978.
Suriano Carlo Maria, "Oak leaves and arabesques", Hali, vol. 116, mai-juin 2001, pp. 106-115.
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Islamic Art : 
