EAST CAUCASUS, 18TH CENTURY

The drawing of this Kuba is exceptional and relates very closely to the Bruschettini carpet published as a detail by Charles Grant Ellis in Early Caucasian Carpets, Washington, 1975, fig.13, p.19. The reciprocal blue and white hooked leaf and palmett border is an unusual and particularly attractive design variant that is seen in a more muted colour palette on a rug formerly in the collection of William Henry Wrench (1836-96), British Consul to Ottoman Turkey, now in the collection of the V&A Museum, London (acc. no. 361-1897) and whose pair was in the Robert Calatchi collection in Paris, (Michael Franses and Robert Pinner, "The Caucasian Collection", in "Caucasian Rugs in the Victoria and Albert Museum", HALI 3/2 (1980) pp.95-115: fig.20).