Oushak

Woven with thick lustrous wool, this Oushak carpet paints a delicate medallion surrounded by kaleidoscopic corner-pieces. Soft texture is paired with a soft palette of gold, cream and apricot. Weaving has an over five-hundred year old history in western Anatolia. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, however, weavers in this region increasingly departed from classical norms and looked to international models. The delicate curvilinear drawing of this piece is indeed reminiscent of Tabriz carpets of neighboring Persia from the same period. Though woven more freely and with thicker pile, a distinct neoclassical aesthetic is also in play.