Oriental carpets in Italian Renaissance paintings: art objects and status symbols

Magazine Antiques, Dec, 2004 by Rosamond E. Mack

(24) See Piero's Madonna and Child Enthroned with Angels, Saints, and Federigo da Montefeltro, c. 1473-1472 (Galleria di Brera, Milan; illustrated in Lightbown, Piero della Francesca, Pls. 103, 104).

(25) Rosamond E. Mack, "Lotto: A Carpet Connoisseur," in David Alan Brown, Peter Humfrey, and Mauro Lucco, Lorenzo Lotto: Rediscovered Master of the Renaissance (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., and Yale University Press, New Haven, 1997), pp. 59-67.

(26) Charles Grant Ellis, "On 'Holbein' and 'Lotto" Rugs," in Oriental Carpet and Textile Studies II, p. 168; and John Mills, "The 'Bellini,' 'Keyhole,' or 'Re-entrant Rugs," Hali, vol. 13 (August 1991), p. 92 and Fig. 13.

(27) Giovanni Curatola, "Four Carpets in Venice," in Oriental Carpet and Textile Studies II, pp. 126-127.

(28) Michael Franses, "The 'Crivelli' Star," in Heinrich Kirchheim et al., Orient Stars: A Carpet Collection (E. Heinrich Kirchheim, Stuttgart, and Hali, London, 1993), pp. 273-276.

(29) Raby, "Court and Export," p. 32. Crivelli carpets also traveled to southern Spain, where their distinctive sixteen-pointed star was imitated in local carpets (King and Sylvester, The Eastern Carpet in the Western World, p. 57).

(30) Roccella, "Large-Pattern Holbein Carpets in Italian Painting," p. 74. The Gonzaga inventory lists a new carpet with "5 wheels" an offset composition known from surviving examples (Chambers, A Renaissance Cardinal and His Worldly Goods, p. 153; and Ellis, "On 'Holbein' and 'Lotto" Rugs," pp. 164-166 and Fig. 3). I now believe that the carpet in the left background of the painting Saint Sebastian (1478-1479; Gernaldegalerie der Alte Meister, Dresden) by Antonello da Messina (c. 1430-1479) is a small-pattern Holbein rather than this type of large-pattern Holbein (Mack, Bazaar to Piazza, p. 80 and Fig. 72).

(31) Chambers, A Renai Cardinal and His Worldly Goods, pp. 153-154; Mack, Bazaar to Piazza, pp. 82-86; and Michael Franses. "The 'Bellini' Keyhole," in Orient Stars; A Carpet Collection, pp. 277-283.

(32) Pier Virgilio Begni Redona, Alessandro Bonvicino, il Moretto da Brescta (Banca San Paolo di Brescia, Brescia, 1988), pp. 450-456.

(33) Robert Pinner and Michael Franses, "The East Mediterranean Carpet Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum," Hali, vol. 4 (Autumn 1981), pp. 37-38; and King and Sylvester; The Eastern Carpet in the Western World, pp. 58-63. Though the borders of the depicted carpets are atypical, motifs resembling the cross-shaped forms in the medallions and cartouches are found in five-color Mamluk carpets; see, for example, Ernst Kuhnel with technical analysis by Louisa Bellinger, Cairene Rugs and Others Technically Related, 15th Century-17th Century, Textile Museum Catalogue Raisonnne (National Publishing, Washington, D. C., 1957), p. 23 and Pl. 13.

(34) Turkish carpets resulting from the "design revolution" (Denny, The Classical Tradition in Anatolian Carpets, pp. 35-45) are first represented in Return of the Doge's Ring of 1534 (Galleria dell'Accadernia, Venice), by Paris Bordone (1500-1571). See Mack, Bazaar to Piazza, p. 90 and Figs. 87-88.