Christie’s also fielded the leading carpet price, £170,000 for one of the celebrated Lotto classes of Ushaks from the 16th century. This 8ft 6in x 4ft 11in (2.5 x 1.5m) specimen looked to be in good overall condition and comfortably exceeded expectations. The auctioneers also obtained a treble-estimate £115,000 for the catalogue cover lot, the Kirman pictorial carpet pictured here.
Dated to c.1910, and measuring 15ft 8in x 10ft 11in (4.76m x 3.3m), the design is taken from a Louis XIV Gobelins tapestry from a fable series whose own designs are in turn based on Raphael drawings.
The other two rooms both fielded smaller selections. Sotheby’s Bond Street's 163 lots offered on April 28th netted £948,600, with selling rates of just 45 per cent by lot and 59 by value, and Bonhams Bond Street's 124-lot sale on the 27th realised £254,370 and sold 56 per cent by lot and 60 by value.
Sotheby’s headline lot was a fashionable carpet with plenty of Western appeal, a cream ground late-19th century Ziegler. At 16ft 7in x 13ft 9in (5m x 4.2m) it was smaller in size than the version sold recently for £110,000 at Lyon and Turnbull but it made even more money, selling for £130,000.
With Mughal Indian material making so much of the headlines in this series, Bonhams’ star prize was a timely and interesting offering, a small fragment from a Mughal carpet, right, dated to c.1630-1650 that sailed past its £6000-8000 estimate to take £48,000.
The tiny piece, measuring approximately 5 1/2 x 6in (14cm x 15cm), woven on silk with a pashmina pile, is part of a group of classic period carpets notable for a high-density knot count and fine weaving. It relates specifically to two other carpets that are less fragmentary but still reduced in size; one in a private Belgian collection, the other in the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection.
Lotto proves lucky for King Street
SALES of antique and decorative carpets traditionally accompany London’s Islamic series and all three participating salerooms offered selections last month. Christie’s King Street had the biggest and most expensive sale: a 269-lot gathering on April 29 that netted £1.78m. It also recorded the highest selling rates, although at 68 per cent by volume and 81 by value, they were not quite as strong as for the works of art offering two days earlier.
