A Safavid Isfahan Rug, Central Persia, mid 17th century

William A. Clark (1839-1925), New York and Montana;

Bequeathed to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.;

Important Carpets from the William A. Clark Collection, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Sotheby's, New York, 5 June 2013, lot 14;

Where acquired by the present collector.

Washington, D.C., Corcoran Gallery of Art, Carpets for the Great Shah, 3 October 1948 - 16 November 1948.

The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Illustrated Handbook of The W. A. Clark Collection, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1928, p. 77;

"Carpets for the Great Shah: The Near-Eastern Carpets from the W. A. Clark Collection," The Corcoran Gallery of Art Bulletin, Washington, D.C., vol. II, no. 1, October 1948, pp. 6 and 16, reproduced pp. 4 and 5.

From all of the Isfahan rugs and carpets in the Clark collection, one of the two palmettes framing the field of this rug was selected for a detail illustration in the 1948 Corcoran Gallery of Art bulletin. It was most likely selected for its grand scale and large palmettes of this size are unusual for a rug of this small format. The two mirrored feathery foliate forms that flank the center of this rug are also not customary and may be unique to this rug. The primary palmettes are entwined within a register of delicately drawn stems in a deep midnight blue. While seldom found elsewhere in Isfahan rugs with wool pile, a comparable scale of the drawing can be found on certain contemporaneous ‘polonaise’ Isfahan carpets in silk and metal-thread, see an example sold as part of the Getty collection, Sotheby’s, New York, 8 December 1990, lot 2.