A Massive 19thC Meshed Country House Carpet; 20 x 15 ft; c.1880

SOLD
Origin: Persia
Style: Meshed
Provenance: Unknown
Date: c.1880
Length:  622 cms / 20 feet (approx)
Width:  455 cms / 15 feet (approx)

Of enormous country house proportions the very good quality Meshed carpet of wonderful intricacy with a typically busy central field of repeating leaves and palmettes, to a dark red ground with beautiful tones of powder blues, ambers and greens, the whole surviving from the last quarter of the nineteenth century and clearly made for an important country house..

This piece had been in the same family for generations and has not been restored. It has been historically cut down and would have been even larger originally. It is worn, stained and dirty with one area of moth eaten holes as photographed – therefore it does need restoration and conservation which is reflected in the asking price. It is, nevertheless, a rare find in this size, age and quality.

Near the Turkestan border of eastern Iran, in the large territory named Khurasan, is the town of Meshed, an important collecting center for rugs and a depot for some nomad rugs. Meshed rugs are knotted on a foundation of cotton, though in some cases there may be wool in the weft. Red is the most usual colour, but the ground may be mauve, with a pattern in cream. Meshed rugs often have a well designed center medallion and large corner patterns. The ground is quite often strewn with an abundance of multi-coloured posies and leaves. The whole rug has a frame of borders, made up, in the best Iranian tradition, of a broad main border and several lesser borders.

An important bonafide country house carpet, its age, quality and size being a testament to this.
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