Middle East, Carpet. Kelim, wool flatweave, formed of two narrow kelims seamed together, Malatya, Turkey, 1840-1875

Carpet [kelim], flat weave, slit tapestry, woven in two strips sewn togther down the middle, Turkish; 19th century

WARP: light brown wool; Z2S; 18 threads per inch (72 per dm).
WEFT: wool (Z2S) and cotton (Z3S in left hand panel and Z2S in right hand panel) and silk; 14 colours: dark red, light red, orange, dark green, green, light green, dark blue, blue, light blue, brown, purple, black, white wool, white cotton and white silk, gilt metal thread on a cotton core; 74-78 shoots per inch (280-290 per dm).
SIDE FINISH: returned weft.
END FINISH: 1 cm plainweave with white wool; warp ends grouped and tied with a single knot.
DESIGN: Field: a dark red ground with 27 bands of four repeating motifs in all colours - alternately a hexagon enclosing a geometric motif and a pair of confronting 'combs'. The remainder of the field is covered with 7 rows of smaller motifs in all colours of stars, diamonds and squares, some with extended arms.
Border: along the side inner edge are reciprocal crenellations and along the upper and lower inner edges are rams' horns. The border has a white ground with a large mtoif of an hour-glass with horizontal extensions.



Date Catalogued: 5.5.98

Bought from the collection of Gaston de Saint-Maurice (1831-1905) in 1884. Saint-Maurice displayed his extensive art collection at the 1878 Paris exhibition, in a gallery entitled L'Egypte des Khalifes. This was part of an official sequence of displays celebrating the history of Egypt, presented by the Egyptian state at this international event. Saint-Maurice held a position at the Khedival court, and had lived in Cairo in 1868-1878. Following the exhibition, Saint-Maurice offered his collection for sale to the South Kensington Museum (today the V&A).

This kelim was woven in two halves which were then sewn together down the middle; the motifs and colours are not always perfectly aligned. The use of two narrow widths implies that the looms used for kelims were not the same as those used for wider pile carpets and that production of kelims and carpets in some areas was quite separate.

1014-1884