An album of original watercolours: Charles T. Yerkes, Collection of 16th Century Rugs, London and New York, 1900-05

Charles T. Yerkes was an American financier who acquired his own banking house at the age of twenty-two, soon accumulating vast wealth. His unscrupulous business practices, which led to a short period of incarceration, and womanising reputation led to his exclusion from polite society. In light of this, Yerkes and his wife opted to spend summers in Europe. Here, he began to collect important paintings and tapestries but was displeased to see that his collection was inferior to those of other American connoisseurs. He quickly identified a gap in the connoisseurship of his counterparts, that of classical carpets, and between 1892 and 1903 Yerkes developed an interest in the field. With the guidance of prominent dealers such as Stefano Bardini and Vincent Robinson, who were building the great European museum collections at that time, Yerkes would go on to acquire “the finest collection of Persian carpets owned by an individual in modern times” (Pope 1926, p.120. See Farnham 1998, for a full biography of the collector and the highlights of his collection).

In 1900, Yerkes commissioned this magnificent volume of watercolours to document his collection. It was originally conceived as an eleven-part set, one to be retained as a personal copy, ten distributed to his favourite museums, from which two hundred lithographed copies would be produced. The album was undoubtedly intended to inspire envy in his rival collectors and it documents Yerkes’ preoccupation with establishing a legacy of refinement and cultivation (Farnham 1998, p.79). The artists inscribed their names with each illustration; all female artists selected from the New York School of Applied Design. The quality of the watercolours is remarkable, both in their accuracy and texture, such that when the Yerkes collection was sold in 1910, these watercolours were used to illustrate the catalogue (Farnham 1998, p.80).

Upon Yerkes’ death in 1905, only the present volume of seventeen watercolours was completed. It nonetheless presents some of the most treasured carpets of his collection, the majority of which are now housed in prominent museum collections, among those illustrated:

1)     The ‘Ardabil’ carpet, Persia, possibly Tabriz, Safavid, dated 946 AH/1539-40 AD, LACMA (inv. no.53.50.2)

2)     A Safavid medallion rug, Persia, 16^th century, Walters Art Museum (inv. no.81.7)

3)     A Polonaise carpet, central Persia, Safavid, 17^th century, Walters Art Museum (inv. no.81.5)

4)     A Mughal pashmina carpet, India, circa 1630, The Frick Collection (inv. no.1916.10.07)

5)     A Safavid carpet, Persia, 16^th/17^th century, The Carpet Museum, Tehran

6)     A Polonaise carpet, central Persia, Safavid, 17^th century – formerly in the Corcoran Gallery of Art, sold Sotheby’s, New York, 5 June 2013, lot 7 (its pair now in the Islamic Arts Museum, Malaysia, inv. no.2022.11.1.

7)     A Safavid carpet with a compartment design, Persia, first half 16^th century, Metropolitan Museum of Art (acc. no.10.61.3)

8)      A Safavid ‘Sanguszko’ medallion carpet, Kirman, Persia, late 16th/early 17^th century, The Carpet Museum, Tehran

9)      A Safavid animal combat carpet, Persia, 16^th century, Metropolitan Museum of Art (acc. no.10. 61.2), its pair is in the Museum of Islamic Art, Doha (inv. no. CA.43.2002)

10) A carpet fragment depicting angels, Persia, Safavid, early 16^th century, Brooklyn Museum of Art (inv. nos.36.213g and 36.213f)

11) A ‘Salting’ carpet, Persia, Safavid, second half 16^th century, Walters Art Museum (inv. no.81.3)

12) A medallion animal carpet, Persia, Safavid, second half 16^th century, Metropolitan Museum of Art (acc. no.17.120.127)

13) A Polonaise carpet, central Persia, Safavid, 17^th century, Metropolitan Museum of Art (acc. no.52.136.2)