Damascene Carpet

Four squares, of either almond green or royal blue colour, each with a sixteen point star at their centre, stand out against the fire red background. Small vegetal motifs - florets, cypresses, rosettes –cluster around the stars as if drawn by a magnet. The quoins which fill the squares are ornamented with a sort of mosaic. At the top end of the area, two more squares are only half shown. The border framing the whole is made of a succession of multi-lobed medallions and elongated ovals; a stem with lozenge florets marks the corners.

Produced towards the middle of the sixteenth century, it seems, this specimen remains faithful to the geometrical style which was imposed in Islamic countries at the end of the Middle Ages, for the decoration of court carpets or those destined for the homes of wealthy citizens. Where did this fashion stem from? Probably from a greater desire to integrate the carpet in the architectural environment and thus to increase its grandeur.  The similarity between this decoration and that of the mosaics and ceramic tiles, or again that of the doors and the marquetry ceilings is noteworthy. The style is “international” and was developed both in the East and the Muslim West and would continue in use for a very long time on certain media. Nineteenth century Moroccan doors in carved wood still had this type of decoration, as can be seen from a work in the Institut du Monde Arabe (Paris).

The attribution of this type of carpet to the Syrian capital still remains uncertain, even if the general term damaschino, appears a few times in the Venetian inventories of the Renaissance period. The type of manufacture, like the decorative features, undeniably links “Damascene” carpets to the Mameluke carpets from Cairo: the same motifs of stars, yew trees and florets, and the same technique of asymmetric knots. Nonetheless, the wool in Damascene carpets is not spun in S ply(clockwise), as it is in those from Cairo, but rather in Z ply(anti-clockwise), and the weft is in a reddish or pinkish beige wool. The pile is also less dense. Their production, probably launched in Mameluke Syria towards the end of the fifteenth century, must have continued quite a long time under the rule of the Ottomans, possibly until the end of the seventeenth century?[1].

We know that Renaissance painters in Europe found oriental carpets fascinating.  Their mysterious decoration allied them with “l'art des Mages” (the art of the Magi), to borrow André Malraux’s expression. This specimen demonstrates the point. At the top of the carpet, the last two squares, half depicted, give the sense of belonging to a much vaster construct which would extend behind the border, like a night sky with stars glimpsed through an open window.  That is, if the carpet is hung vertically. It presents a different interpretation on the ground; the fire red background looks like a pool of water scattered with lotus flowers and reflecting a fiery sky above.

Nonetheless, Syrian carpets with a mosaic effect are undoubtedly rarer than their fellows from Anatolia or Egypt, and not often represented. It was not until the second half of the sixteenth century that a “Damascene carpet” appeared under the altar cloth in the Circumcision of the Infant Jesus painted by Marco dall'Angolo known as "The  Moor", circa 1580 (Venice, Galleria dell'Accademia).