File:A highly important Safavid silk and metal-thread 'Polonaise' carpet, probably Isfahan, central Persia, early 17th century.jpg

English: A HIGHLY IMPORTANT SAFAVID SILK AND METAL-THREAD 'POLONAISE' CARPET

PROBABLY ISFAHAN, CENTRAL PERSIA, EARLY 17TH CENTURY

The field centred by a quatrefoil medallion formed of inverted palmettes linked by delicate flowering stems that extend into the field forming curvaceous arabesques terminating with maroon red, forest-green or burnished gold split-palmettes, framed within a shaded grass-green border of palmettes alternating with individual flowerheads enclosed within paired saz leaves between pale peach floral meander minor stripes, with an extensive colour palette and considerable silk pile throughout, overall excellent condition 6ft.5in. x 4ft.6in. (197cm. x 141cm.)

This important and rare silk and metal-thread Polonaise carpet is the perfect marriage of beauty, artistry and exoticism. It previously formed part of the esteemed art collection of Baron Adolphe Carl von Rothschild (1823-1900), known affectionately as ‘Dolly’. Adolphe von Rothschild was the son of Carl Mayer von Rothschild (1788-1855), a member of the great banking dynasty whose political, economic and cultural achievements were so successful and ubiquitous, that they seemed almost untouchable in relation to other familial dynasties of the 19th and 20th centuries. Rooted in Frankfurt, London, Paris, Vienna and Naples, Adolphe remained in Naples where he was appointed General Consul of the Duchy of Parma. Less renowned for his banking prowess but more as an art connoisseur with exquisite taste, Adolphe took the bold decision in 1865, to become the first family member to leave the partnership in order to devote his time to building a significant and important art collection. It took a further two years of arduous negotiation before he was able to successfully step down from his familial duties.

In 1857 Adolphe bought Châteaux de Pregny on the shores of Lake Geneva, but his time was also spent in Paris at rue de Monceau, located in a fashionable area inhabited by similarly wealthy banking families such as the Ephrussi, Camondo and the Goüin. In 1868 Adolphe, who already owned 45 and 49 rue de Monceau, purchased no 47 from Princess Mingrelie and the Marquess de Fernandin. With the help of the family architect, Felix Langlais, Adolphe continued to make alterations to the building which included a single story extension with a glazed roof that would house a ballroom, a conservatory and a smoking room. Adolphe’s wife, Julie, whom he had married in 1850, shared his passion for fine art but where he favoured the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, his wife appreciated fine French furnishings of the 18th century. Together they filled the house with treasures which were sensitively displayed in bespoke galleries illuminated from above with natural light from the glazed ceilings.

Upon Adolphe’s death at rue de Monceau in 1900, the house passed to his wife and, following her death in 1907, later passed to Adolphe’s cousin, Maurice de Rothschild (1881-1957), second son of Edmond James de Rothschild (1845-1934). Sadly the house was demolished in the 1970’s but we can see from this watercolour, that the interiors were indeed sumptuous and that textiles and oriental carpets were greatly admired and were integral to the collection.

This 'Polonaise' carpet remained in Maurice de Rothschild’s collection for a further sixty years until after his death in 1957, when a legendary sale took place in Paris in 1968 at Palais Galliéra containing a group of no less than twelve 'Polonaise', from an anonymous private collection, but which was widely acknowledged as being that of Maurice de Rothschild. We can be certain that this 'Polonaise' carpet was once part of Adolphe’s collection as, remarkably, it still retains the original cloth hand-stitched label, noting that it was formerly in the, “appartement au Baron Adolphe de Rothschild, 45 rue Monceau”.

Depicted in black and white within a slim, partially illustrated catalogue, the present 'Polonaise' was clearly considered to be the best of the group as it was displayed in full colour upon the front cover. The carpet was acquired at the auction by the New York branch of the renowned gallery Rosenberg & Stiebel, who themselves had a long and loyal relationship with the Rothschilds and indeed with many of continental Europe’s noble and aristocratic families. The gallery parted with the carpet a year later in 1970, when it was purchased by a private collector in whose noble family it has remained. At the time, the art historian and curator of the Near Eastern Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art , New York, Dr. Maurice Dimand, had encouraged the sale by writing to his client that the Rosenberg and Stiebel carpet was,“….a very fine piece, which I would date to the first half of the seventeenth century.”

THE ROYAL COURT OF SHAH ABBAS’ THE GREAT

The decision of Shah ‘Abbas I (1587-1629) to move his capital city from Qazvin to Isfahan in 1598, was to become the crowning glory of his imperial achievement. Under his reign, Isfahan arguably became the most beautiful city in Iran, filled with palaces, mosques, gardens and squares of breath-taking beauty. In contrast to the previous shah of note, Shah Tahmasp, who had been strongly influenced by his deep religious fervour, which had resulted in the closure of nearly all the royal workshops, Shah ‘Abbas welcomed foreigners with their trade and innovations in all fields. He appointed an Englishman, Sir Robert Shirley, as his ambassador, to visit the courts of Europe and establish important political relations with Persia. The artistic renaissance encouraged a variety of different art forms to flourish from calligraphy, painting and metalwork and of course, carpet and textile production.

Shah ‘Abbas had a great appreciation for sumptuous textiles, silks and woven carpets and production in Isfahan rapidly grew under his patronage. The present carpet is testament to the inspirational designs and techniques produced in the new weaving ateliers. The results of the recent scientific Carbon 14 test clearly demonstrate that the vast probability is that this rug was made well within his reign. Silk was one of the most costly materials available and, as such, was reserved almost exclusively for the courts use. A number of workshops would have been working specifically on personal commissions for the shah which would have been appreciated within his palaces. Two such carpets are known to have been given in royal waqf to the great Shiite shrine of the Imam ‘Ali at Najf. European visitors travelling to Persia at the time, commented specifically on the richness of the silk textiles and carpets that they saw. John Fryer in 1676 notes that Isfahan had special bazaars handling the sale of rugs “both woolen and silk, intermixed with Gold and Silver, very costly, which are the peculiar manufacture of this country” (quoted by M. S. Dimand and Jean Mailey, Oriental Rugs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1973, p.59). Other travellers who commented on the silk weavings in both Kashan and Isfahan, include Pater Florentino de Nino Jesus in 1607-08, Thomas Herbert in 1627-8 and Jean-Baptiste Tavernier in 1676.

'POLONAISE' CARPETS

The design of ‘Polonaise’ carpets saw a major departure from traditional Persian carpets. Until this point carpet designs adopted a single ground colour within the field, maybe another secondary colour within the medallion, or rarely, a reciprocal design of two colours for the border. The earliest Kashan silk and metal-thread carpets follow the same concept, with monochrome metal-thread fields (Arthur Upham Pope, A Survey of Persian Art, Oxford, 1938, pls. 1242 &1243). Shortly after this the designers began using the irregularly shaped panels formed by the scrolling foliate arabesques to create individual fields, each of which was defined by a different ground colour, a technique already long established in manuscript illumination. The field design of this carpet demonstrates this feature very well, through a complex interlocking arrangement of forms each of different coloured silks and gold and silver metal-threads, overlaid with a fine lattice of leafy vine and arabesques.

A significant proportion of 'Polonaise' carpets made at the time, were gifted by the Shah as ambassadorial gifts to European royalty and nobility, foreign emissaries and leaders of trade delegations. They were hugely appreciated by the Baroque nobility of the 17th century courts, Louis XV apparently owned twenty five such rugs with precious silk and metal thread. The Polish royalty in particular held a deep fascination for such Persian works of art. Records show that in as early as 1584, King Stephen Bathory (r.1576-1586) acquired thirty-four Persian textiles, while in 1601 a group of eight Safavid silk carpets embellished with gold was ordered by Sigismund Vasa III of Poland for his daughter’s wedding, (Axel Langer, The Fascination of Persia, Zurich, 2013, p.121). These appear to have been delivered in 1602, some or all of which then passed by marriage into the Wittelsbach family and are now in the Residenz Museum in Munich. Further examples remain in noble European collections today such as those of the Swedish and Danish royal families, the Princes of Lichtenstein, the royal house of Savoy in Italy, the Duke of Buccleuch and the Papal collection in the Vatican.

The term 'Polonaise', was first coined at the Paris Universal Exhibition in 1878 where, in the Polish section of one of the pavilions, examples of this group of carpets belonging to Prince Czartoryski, some bearing his recently added personal coat of arms, were exhibited publicly for the first time (Kurt Erdmann, Europa und der Orientteppich, Mainz, 1962, pl.36. pp.8405). Visitors and journalists mistakenly concluded that these carpets had been woven in Poland and it wasn’t until after the exhibition had closed, that the true origin was discovered. The Polish attribution has persisted and continues to be used today.