The Von Hirsch Backyard Carpet Fragment: A Seventeenth-Century Persian Textile

The Von Hirsch Backyard Carpet fragment is a Seventeenth-century Persian textile attributed to Northwest Persia, now within the Nazmiyal Assortment. One in every of 4 documented surviving sections, it combines an expressive backyard composition with an in depth publication file and an possession historical past that features Robert von Hirsch, Christopher Alexander, and Sir Howard Hodgkin.

This fragment presents a possibility to review an early Persian carpet by way of its surviving design, technical documentation, and gathering historical past.

Object Particulars

Origin: Northwest Persia, present-day IranDate: Seventeenth centuryHistorical interval: SafavidDimensions: Roughly 7 toes × 3 toes 2 inches / 213 × 95 cmMaterials: Wool pile, cotton warp, and wool weftTechnique: Hand-knotted, with uneven knots open to the leftCollection: Nazmiyal Assortment, New York

A Backyard Organized By means of Sample

The composition brings collectively lobed compartments full of timber and flowering crops, separated by cross-shaped varieties. The timber flip in numerous instructions, encouraging the attention to maneuver by way of the textile fairly than observe a single viewpoint.

From a distance, the compartments set up the design’s rhythm. Seen carefully, the person crops introduce variation inside that construction. Every compartment turns into a small visible world, whereas remaining a part of the bigger association.

In our view, this stability between order and selection is central to the fragment’s enchantment. Its sample is straight away clear, but its particulars maintain extended consideration. The surviving part additionally makes the dimensions of the unique conception tangible: it presents a considerable composition whereas inviting the viewer to think about the bigger carpet.

The Persian Backyard in Safavid Carpet Design

The backyard occupies an everlasting place in Persian visible tradition. In carpets, backyard imagery might translate cultivated landscapes into woven preparations of timber, flowers, compartments, and waterways.

The Metropolitan Museum of Artwork’s dialogue of the Burrell Assortment’s Wagner Backyard Carpet explains the chahar-bagh as a four-part backyard divided by water channels that meet at a central pool. That separate carpet gives a helpful comparability for understanding the connection between panorama and textile design.

The Von Hirsch carpet organizes its backyard otherwise. Its lobed compartments and intervening crosses place emphasis on the crops inside the sample, fairly than on a literal plan of rectangular beds and water channels. The numerous orientation of its timber permits the composition to be approached from a number of instructions.

These variations assist clarify the breadth of the Persian garden-carpet custom. The backyard was a supply of inventive invention, able to producing markedly totally different woven interpretations.

Northwest Persian Attribution and the Jaipur Comparability

The fragment is attributed to Northwest Persia, though its exact weaving heart stays unresolved.

The Christie’s essay revealed in 1998 discusses similarities between its plant varieties and people of the Jaipur Backyard Carpet. It additionally information an earlier, tentative suggestion of Bidjar as a potential origin. Neither comparability establishes a selected workshop.

The Jaipur carpet’s documented presence earlier than 1632 gives some extent of comparability, fairly than a confirmed date for the Von Hirsch textile. The excellence issues: a relationship between designs can illuminate the motion of inventive concepts with out establishing precisely the place or when a person carpet was woven.

Because of this, Northwest Persia, Seventeenth century, stays the suitable revealed attribution.

Christopher Alexander and Howard Hodgkin: Two Views on the Textile

The fragment’s fashionable possession brings collectively two figures whose work invitations shut consideration to visible relationships: the architect and creator Christopher Alexander and the painter Sir Howard Hodgkin.

Alexander included the textile in his assortment, and it appeared in his ebook A Foreshadowing of twenty first Century Artwork: The Shade and Geometry of Very Early Turkish Carpets. It was additionally exhibited together with his assortment on the M. H. de Younger Museum in San Francisco.

The fragment subsequently belonged to Hodgkin. HALI’s account locations it among the many historic carpets and textiles he displayed alongside different artistic endeavors in his house and studio.

These associations add a contemporary chapter to the textile’s historical past. They doc its appreciation past carpet gathering, whereas leaving every viewer free to contemplate its design independently. They don’t, by themselves, set up a direct affect on a selected constructing, principle, or portray.

At Nazmiyal, we strategy the fragment by way of each its documentary historical past and its visible presence. Its provenance information possession and examine; the textile itself stays the start line for understanding its inventive character.

One in every of 4 Documented Surviving Fragments

The revealed file identifies 4 surviving sections of the Von Hirsch Backyard Carpet. Their separation is a part of the thing’s historical past, making every fragment each a person work and proof of a bigger composition. The Nazmiyal instance is subsequently described right here as one in every of 4 documented surviving fragments.

Provenance

Robert von Hirsch (1883–1977), Germany and Switzerland;

The Robert Von Hirsch Assortment, Quantity Three, Furnishings & Porcelain, Sotheby’s Parke Bernet, London, 23 and 27 June 1978, lot 501 (half);

With Alan Marcuson, by 1979;

Lefevre & Companions, London, 27 April 1979, lot 16;

Christopher Alexander (1936–2022), Berkeley, earlier than 1993;

The Christopher Alexander Assortment, Christie’s, London, 15 October 1998, lot 216;

Sir Howard Hodgkin CH CBE (1932–2017), London;

Howard Hodgkin, Portrait of the Artist, Sotheby’s, London, 24 October 2017, lot 241;

Non-public assortment, acquired on the above sale;

Magnum Opus | Night Public sale, Sotheby’s, New York, October 2026, lot 13;

Nazmiyal Assortment, acquired on the above sale.

Exhibited

San Francisco, M. H. de Younger Museum, The Christopher Alexander Assortment, November 1990 – February 1991.

Literature

HALI, vol. II, no. 1, Spring 1979, promoting p. 66;

“With hindsight: 1978 – 1988”, HALI, no. 42, November-December 1988, reproduced p. 89;

C. Alexander, A Foreshadowing of twenty first Century Artwork, the Shade and Geometry of Very Early Turkish Carpets, New York and Oxford, 1993, pp. 280-282, reproduced p. 281;

“Public sale Worth Information”, HALI, no. 102, January 1999, pp. 125-126;

D. Shaffer, “Season of mists”, HALI, no. 193, 2017, pp. 122-125, reproduced fig. 3;

“Public sale Worth Information”, HALI, no. 194, 2017, p. 143.

Accumulating an Early Persian Carpet Fragment

An early carpet fragment carries proof of each inventive intention and bodily survival. Its significance is dependent upon what stays of the design, what we are able to set up about its development, and the way reliably its historical past has been documented.

For this textile, revealed technical data, exhibition historical past, literature, and provenance provide a number of avenues for examine. Its fragmentary state additionally makes cautious examination important. Contemplate present situation, repairs, backing, and mounting alongside the historic catalog entries.

For show, we’d think about the fragment as a textile supposed for shut viewing. A wall presentation could enable its composition to be studied comfortably, topic to a textile conservator’s evaluation of its situation and help. The suitable set up must be decided from the precise object and the proposed setting.

View the Von Hirsch Backyard Carpet Fragment at Nazmiyal

Contact the Nazmiyal Assortment to rearrange a non-public viewing in New York, request detailed pictures, or focus on the out there documentation for this Seventeenth-century Persian textile.

Stock depth: Discover the broader Nazmiyal assortment to position this fragment in context.

Authenticity Focus: Overview the revealed attribution, provenance, and documentary file.

Sensible steering: Focus on situation, show, and the questions related to your assortment.