Woven with precious threads of silk and pashmina wool, these two carpets were made in the royal manufactories of northern India in the seventeenth century. At the time, India was ruled by the Muslim Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan, celebrated for having built the Taj Mahal, a mausoleum for his favorite wife. These rugs may have once decorated one of Shah Jahan’s palaces or may have been used as diplomatic gifts.
Each carpet is composed of fragments of much larger and longer rugs. Over the centuries, the carpets were damaged by wear and tear; and in the late nineteenth century, some of the best-preserved areas were reassembled in order to create objects to be sold on the market in the west. Fragments from the same carpets survive in other public and private collections.
Mughal carpets are known for their graceful depictions of trees and flowers set against bright red backgrounds. Some of the plants and flowers can be identified, while others are creations of the artists who designed the carpets.
Henry Clay Frick placed these carpets on the floor of two rooms in his mansion on East 70th Street. But this does not mean he was unaware of their importance. In fact, he actually paid more for them than he did for some of the Impressionist paintings in his collection. For conservation reasons, the carpets are now displayed in cases, shown upright, unfortunately distorting the original effect they would have had as imaginary gardens underfoot.
Carpet with Trees
Long imported from Persia, carpets began to be woven in India in the second half of the sixteenth century under the patronage of the Mughal dynasty. This fragment of what was once a much larger carpet reflects the high quality reached during the reign of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan (1628−58), who is best known for building the Taj Mahal. With its naturalistic depiction of flowers and trees, it epitomizes the distinctive style of the imperial court. On a rich red ground, a row of alternating varieties of green and flowering trees—including cypresses, various kinds of broad-leaf trees, and yellow peachlike and pink plumlike trees—appear at center. The large border is woven with stylized flowers, leaves, buds, and palmettes. Though the design is symmetric and repetitive, none of the motifs are entirely identical, producing an animated composition. The delicate polychromatic shading and refined foliage, which find parallels in Indian miniature paintings, were achieved through the use of expensive materials, notably imported silk (for the warps and wefts), costly dyes exclusively available in India, and the most rare natural material used for carpet weaving: the very fine hair of Himalayan goats, known in the West as cashmere and, more recently, pashmina. The extraordinary quality of this fragment and the size of the carpet to which it belongs leave no doubt that the carpet was made in one of the official imperial workshops for a member of the Mughal imperial family or someone very close to it.
Source: Vignon, Charlotte. The Frick Collection Decorative Arts Handbook. New York: The Frick Collection/Scala, 2015.
Tomb mosque of Shaikh Safi at Ardebil. Acquired in the 1880s by Vincent Robinson & Co., London. Charles T. Yerkes, New York. His sale, April 8, 1910, American Art Association, New York, Lot 215. Duveen. Frick, 1916.
Source: Enamels, Rugs and Silver in The Frick Collection. Volume VIII. New York: The Frick Collection, 1977.
