An Agra Gallery Carpet, North India, circa 1860

Anonymous sale, Sotheby’s, New York, 7 December 2010, lot 265;

Where acquired by the present collector.

This finely worked carpet is one of the early and most sophisticated products of the workshops that were established in the jails of India in the 19th century. Its faithful adaptation of a 17th century Isphahan cloudband and palmette design is so similar in coloring and composition to a carpet from the Collection of Mr and Mrs Reginald Toms that it is very likely from the same workshop and may even have been woven en suite, see Sotheby's London, The Toms Collection, 7 June 1995, lot 48.  A related example more recently sold at auction was lot 174, Property from the Collection of Mrs Charles Wrightsman, Sotheby's New York, 28 April 2010.