Agra carpet

As early as the Mughal era during the 16th and 17th centuries and on into the 19th, Indian weavers had been incorporating elements from neighboring Persia into their rug designs. Rugs from Mughal India are renowned as some of the most serenely elegant pieces ever woven. This Agra carpet from northern India is a direct descendant of this celebrated Mughal weaving tradition. Against an ivory field a subtle medallion is delicately drawn in deep ox-blood tones surrounded by a host of floral forms and vine-scroll. While the drawing of the medallion and the accompanying quartered medallion corner-pieces reflect contemporaneous renderings of the 19th century, other motifs harken back to classical drawing of the 17th century. This includes the cloud-band motif found within several palmette forms drawn in the field as well as being interspersed within the border. Indeed, the alternating cartouche and rosette border seen here has it origins in a group of Mughal medallion carpets from the 17th century. The Mughal craftsmen, in turn revived the design from an earlier group of Northwest Persian medallion carpets dating to about 1500. Here we have the full flowering of northern Indian weaving during the 19th century.