Historically the second group of carpets that is most important after the Selçuk carpets are those known as the animal-figured Anatolian carpets. We assume that some figured carpets must have been produced by the Selçuks of Anatolia since in so many ways their palaces display in artistic expression a rich variety of figured representations. İt would be hard to think that these were not carried over into the carpets. But examples do not exist, probably because they were destroyed from constant and negligent use. As we have seen, those Selçuk carpets which have remained are from the mosques where they were preserved in quite good condition. Since no figurative decoration was allowed in these places of worship we naturally find that the mosque carpets have mostly geometric designs. Stylized floral motifs do appear but very rarely.
The rugs of a decorative character with stylized animal figures began to appear among Anatolian carpets about the 14th century, a date confirmed with the help of the pictorial guide which exists in the European paintings from the beginning of the 14th to the end of the 15th century.
The recognition of the importance of this group came first from these paintings, then samples of the original carpets began to
appear, even if only a few in number. The first to be found was the so called Ming carpet; later came the Marby rug, it was followed by the fragments from Fostat.
The study of animal-figured carpets was first taken up as a separate subject of research by the art historian K. Erdmann.
He divided these carpets into various figural types. Taking into consideration all the figured carpets that are now known, we would separate them into the following types: those that contain simple motif s of animal or bird like figures between or within geometric frames which are arranged in straight offset rows on the main field (actual carpets of this type exist); those that depict a bird-like figure as an heraldic symbol, as in the case of single -or double- headed eagles (only seen in 14th century paintings); and those that have in them a figure resembling a cockerel. The animal type generally has in it some kind of an ambulant quadruped, often with a reversed head.
The more complex types of carpet designs may also include pairs of birds flanking a tree either within a frame or in rows on the main field. Even more complex animal figures, when they finally developed, took on the characteristics of a group motif of combat between a phoenix and a dragon. Examples of this type all come from the 15th century. The geometric frames in earlier carpets are rectangular or square, but later they become elongated hexagons or octagons.
Erdmann cites examples of re prese nations in his writings, the earliest in a painting of the Giotto school around 1330. We have no woven sample of this type of carpet but the frequency of the representations, and the occurrence of this carpet motif on Anatolian Turkish monuments and textiles of the Selçuk and later periods suggest that it may have been one of the earliest carpets of this type.
Ambulant animal figures were frequently seen on rugs and their representations in the 14th century; six examples in all have been recorded. There is only one such example dating from the 15th century. From the miniature in the Demotte “Shahnama” in the Freer Gallery, Washington, DC, it appears that representations of carpets from this group were even being made in more eastern regions by the middle of the 14th century. The repeated ambulant animal figure in a geometric frame to be seen in part in this miniature could well have been copied from a rug imported from Anatolia.
Strongly stylized bird motifs first appear in İtalian paintings, generally of the Sienese and Florentine schools, beginning with the paintings of Giotto early in the 14th century. They continue to occur in paintings of these schools up to the middle of the 15th century.
The first representation within large rectangles of two birds on either side of a tree can be seen in Simone Marti’s painting of St. Louis sitting on a throne. This painting is dated 1317 and is found in the St. Lorenzo Church, Naples. İn this carpet, different colored eagle-like birds are facing outwards from within rectangles of differing colors.
Another example can be seen in Filippo Memmi’s painting of Mary and the Infant Jesus (1350). The carpet depicted is large consisting of twenty sections; the borders are not visible. On a light red ground are cream colored rectangles with cut off corners and filled with two birds on each side of a tree. The field between the sections contains blue rosettes.
The stylized heraldic eagle in frontal or profile position appears as early as 1259 in a Byzantine fresco in Boiana and is found in replicas of textiles and carpets up to the 15th century (Pl. 25).
The motifs may sometimes be ambivalent; they may be seen as either animals or birds. Nevertheless they have a distinct stylistic character. There is one representation in an Italian painting, dated in the second half of the 14th century, of a carpet with bird-like animal figures filling geometric divisions. This is the painting on wood by Niccolo di Buonacorso (d. 1388) of the “Marriage of the Virgin”, dated 1370 and in the National Gallery, London. İt contains the characteristic zoomorphic device (Pl. 26, 27). The carpet has a red main field divided into rectangles with corners depressed. The frames are filled with stylized standing cockerel like devices with heads reversed. The colors of the motif and the inner field of the rectangles alternate, a red bird on a yellow field, then a yellow one on a red field.
A fragment of a carpet kept in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, bears part of a similar bird figure. This fragment which may fall into this group of Anatolian carpets, measures 25.5×18 cm (1,600 Turkish knots per 10 cm2) and was one of the fragments recovered from Fostat. The colors are green, light brown and two tones of red.
Western examples of this type are to be found in a painting of the “Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints” in Siena. İn this painting by Ambrogio Lorenzetti (1319-1347) we see a carpet spread beneath the throne of the Virgin which bears within an octagonal frame the ambulant figure of a leopard with tail stretched forward. A similar painting by the same artist, in the Munich Baer Collection until 1933 (when it was auctioned), contains a carpet again under the Madonna’s throne, but here we see rows of standing quadrupeds within alternating dark and light geometric divisions (III. 14).
A detail of the “Annunciation” (Sienese School), originally in the Schlossmuseum, Berlin, which was painted by an artist of the same school, contains the representation of a carpet spread on the ground. The carpet displays rows of ambulant quadrupeds in squares with their heads and tails reversed. One figure is occasionally turned so that it faces the next one and the corners of the squares are cut off and contain swastika motifs. Despite the popularity of these kinds of representations within the Sienese School, this precise type of carpet has yet to be discovered in the original.
Another two bird composition within rectangles appears in Pietro Gerini’s St. Matthew fresco in the Church of St. Francesco da Nicola, Prato. The carpet depicted is a 14th century one used as a table cover. Within rectangles with cut corners the bird composition appears light on a dark ground and then this reverses.
A valuable piece of evidence for the dating of carpets with rows of single animal or bird like figures on open or framed grounds, and indeed for categorizing a 14th century group of animal carpets, exists in the damaged fresco of Matteo di Giovanni in the Papal Palace in Avignon. The carpet shown in this fresco contains a white “swan” motif, rather like a peacock, repeated geometrically. A 14th century document in the form of a narrative refers to the existence of such a carpet. it seems that Pope Benedict XII, one of the Popes residing at Avignon during the 14th century, was very fond of carpets and always kept a carpet spread in front of the Papal throne, one which contained parrot and swan like figures. A painting by Giovanni di Paolo of “The Pope Enthroned Attended by St. Catherine of Siena” which is in the Stocklet Collection, Brussels and is dated 1440, records this 15th century legendary carpet and its assumed patron. This carpet of the Anatolian type contains geometric frames, each filled with a single bird.
Carpets within the final group to be described contain motifs somewhat removed from simple isolated animal figures. Each figure is here incorporated into group combat compositions, varying in complexity and level of stylization. More carpets of this type actually exist than of any other. The first to be found was the so-called Ming carpet, acquired by Bode in 1890. İt was in the possession of an antique dealer in Rome having just been discovered in a church in central İtaly. Bode purchased the carpet for the Museum of Islamic Art, Berlin. İt was at that time considered to be the oldest carpet in the world, a theory not to be changed until the discovery of the Selçuk carpets.
The Ming carpet, now in the East Berlin Museum, has a main field divided into two equal rectangular sections. The corners of the rectangle are cut off by a hooked device thus forming two octagons. Within the octagons are identical compositions of combat between a dragon and a phoenix. The figures have become highly stylized to the point of being decorative motifs. The compo-sitional motif of a phoenix and dragon is much used in Chinese art, being associated mainly with the Ming period, when, however, they were not portrayed in combat. The appearance, as in this carpet, of the two actually engaged in combat is the result of a different world view. The field color of the carpet is yellow, the Chinese imperial color. The liberty and creativity used by expert weavers are shown in the great variety of depictions of the figures in the combat scenes within the octagons. Variations of the motif can be seen in the Konya carpet discussed below, where the motif described as a cockerel also contains a highly stylized composite device in which the phoenix is present only in a symbolic form.
The phoenix and dragon combat motif is to be seen also on two of the fragments found at Fostat (III. 16, 17). The motif on the fragment in the Völkerkunde Museum, Basel, has a composition which is identical to that found on a fragment discovered by Erdmann in an antique market. İt is much damaged, but traces of the dragon and the head of the phoenix can be distinguished in red with blue contours. This motif occurs frequently in Florentine paintings of the 15th century.
A representation of this combat motif within a field in eight sections in a fresco of the “Marriage of the Foundlings” in the Ospedale S. M. della Scala, Siena, dated 1440-44 and painted by Domenico di Bartolo suggests that the original Fostat fragments may also have been sections of carpets with a main field divided into eight sections (III. 18). This type of motif is also suggested in the painting by Giovanni di Francesco (1420), the Cassone panel and the painting by Bartolomeo değil Erri, “Scene from the Legend of St. Vincent Ferrer ” (III. 19), Mills cites eight other Florentine versions from the middle of the 15th century and two later versions from the same school. İt also appears in a painting by the Flemish school.
With the distorted form of the phoenix and the dragon, the motif of the Ming carpet is seen in the painting of “Dorothy St. John, Lady Cary” attributed to William Larkin, ca. 1600. Here the composition is within long hexagons, an arrangement which did not appear after the 14th century. The phoenix is depicted larger and its head resembles a hook with the tail cut off. On the other hand the figure of the dragon is rather small, taking the form of a simplified animal. They are similar to the dragon figures that look like birds on either side of the tree in the animal carpet in the Vakıflar Museum, İstanbul.
About fifty-five years ago a rug was discovered in Sweden in a church in the village of Marby in dam land province. The rug is divided into two octagonal sections, each containing a pair of facing birds flanking a tree. But in this composition the octagon is completely filled with the branches of trees and their reflection below, each tree appearing as if in water. The wide and narrow borders fit the characteristic patterns of the Konya Selçuk carpets and the old Turkish carpets.
This Marby rug is of a type seen in the 15th century paintings by such artists as Baldovinetti, Morone and Hans Memling. It has been suggested that the compositional arrangement of the Marby rug may also suggest a possible variation of the combat motif within the classical octagonal framework.
İn the National Historical Museum, Stockholm, on two of the three fragments from Fostat are displayed different and varied stylistic compositions of this carpet’s decorative form. The two show a variation on the Marby carpet of two birds flanking a tree. This is an example of the endless diagonal composition which does not have geometric sections.
On the third piece between a geometric motif of eight pointed stars and hexagons is an opposing four legged animal figure. The originals of the three animal figured carpets have not been found. The two fragments originally in the Lamm collection in the same museum are dated to the middle of the 15th century. The bird figures on these have completely disappeared.
The difference between the third piece and the other two is that the birds are a pair facing each other and the geometric sections are separated with the birds between and outside of them. This carpet fragment is also older than the other two and dates to the early 15th century.
Yet another interpretation of this theme can be seen on a carpet now kept among the collection of the General Directorate of Pious Foundations in the Vakıflar Carpet Museum, İstanbul. İt was collected from Foundation premises in Ankara but from which particular building is not known. The carpet measures 2.21×1.53 m and, like the Marby rug, has a field divided into two rec-tangular sections containing depressed octagons. The octagons each contain a pair of stylized figures facing each other with a tree between. The figure is a quadruped, some what like the figure on the Konya carpet, although its stylized wings and trefoil crenel-lation are larger and more detailed. On a field of red are placed white figures studded with red and dark blue crescent shapes. Wings stretch out from a rectangular lozenge on the back of the figure. The medallions are framed by a band of alternately placed hooked and plain lozenges in red, white and yellow on a green field. The border contains eight pointed stars and hooked “flint” motifs on a white field. The same border continues across the center of the carpet cutting the field between the two medallions. The inner and outer guard borders are filled with floral motifs in two alternating colors on a purple ground. At each end of the carpet are two extra narrow bands with dark fields in which naturalistic foliate scrolls alternate in pairs or singly in three different colors.
The figure and border motifs are comparable to those on a carpet in the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art, İstanbul (Inventory No. 1036). The carpet in the Vakıf Museum, however, displays a more complex and highly developed composition than that of the Marby rug, and the combination and complexity of motifs in the Vakıf carpet indicate that towards the end of the 15th century important changes were occurring in the device and its use.
Another carpet from this group, the surviving part of a carpet which was once cut in half, is now in the Ethnographic Museum, Konya (Inventory No. 841). İt was brought from the Medrese of Mevlana on October 9, 1926 to the Mevlana Museum and subsequently transferred in 1978 to its present location. The carpet measures 2.15×1.08 m and contains ten rows of stylized figures described as cockerels on a red field. Each row of the motif contains four figures, their colors changing as they descend diagonally from green in the upper righthand corner to white, purple, white, blue, white and purple. A rectangular device on the bird’s back from which wings appear to extend, bears a floral motif and fillings contrasting in color to the main motif. The body is also stippled in contrasting colors. Two stylized motifs, one foliate and the other animal like, fiil the border in alternating rows of dark blue and red on a cream ground. A row of red linked leaves outlined in blue fills up the dark blue field of the outer guard border. The large hooked wings of the main motif would suggest that it is a stylized form of the motif of a phoenix and dragon in combat, the phoenix being represented only in a very symbolic form by the wings.
A replica of a bir d motif with some resem blance to the one in the Konya carpet described above can be seen in a painting by Jaume Huguet (1455-1456) which is now in the Catalonia Museum, Barcelona The tail and claws of both motifs are almost identical, although there are differences in some of the elements of the body, wings and neck. The birds in the replica face right, whereas those in the Konya carpet face left. On the other hand, the border bears no resemblance to the Konya original, but contains many pointed stars in squared divisions (III. 20). However, as it seems to belong to the same figural group, this painting helps date the Konya carpet to the first half of the 15th century.
An animal-figured carpet similar to the Konya carpet is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, with the profile head of a bird reminiscent of the figure in one of the Fostat fragments. İt is similar also to that seen in Buonacorso’s painting in the National Gallery, London, of the “Marriage of Mary”.
An animal-figured carpet in the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum, İstanbul (Inv. No. 566) which had come from the Alaeddin Mosque, Konya, shows the highly stylized figures in a geometric form of the late 15th century. İt is in poor condition. İn the middle of a 90×90 cm section of the red field is a large deep blue octagon while on the two borders are “S” motifs, inside blue on red, and outside brown on yellow. These are separated by lines, red with white accents.
The Konya animal carpet has used the motifs of the Ming and Marby carpets in a different and highly stylized composition within a completely geometric framework. The Kufic like border decorations here are reminiscent of those in Carlo Crivelli’s painting of the large pattern Type III Holbein carpets.
Another carpet showing a composition of a series of hexagons filled with eight pointed stars is seen hanging from the corner of the balustrade in a second Crivelli painting dated 1486, also in the National Gallery. A Crivelli type composition can be seen on half of an original carpet preserved in the Decorative Art Museum, Budapest. These stunning examples are reminiscent of the Marby or Ming rugs but here the geometric areas are not delineated. The composition of a large star appears twice on the main yellow field. The areas around the stars are filled with birds and four legged animals much like the first animal figured carpets.
The stylized border of yellow and red oak leaves on a dark blue field was to appear on Holbein (Type III) carpets, and then even later, on the Bergama carpets. The stylized bird and animal figures and other details are typical of those found in Crivelli paintings in London and Frankfurt, thus giving it a dating to the end of the century. These carpets have taken on his name because of their frequency in his paintings.
Nejat Diyarbekirli at the First International Turkish Carpet Congress (İstanbul, 1984) pre-sented a Sivrihisar prayer rug of this type. But on it in place of the ground of yellow is one of pomegranate red with a single Crivelli medallion containing an animal figüre. Also the border and fillings in the corners are quite different and the medallion composition is distorted.
A cushion cover, dated to the late 15th or early 16th century and now in the Nordenska National Museum, Stockholm, bears a similar device which suggests that the use of such a motif became widespread. İn the Vakıf carpet the motif had begun to show signs of extreme stylization; in the cushion cover the phoenix element has begun to disappear completely, the dragon simply changes shape by becoming even more stylized. The figure which has been described as a dragon or cockerel on both the Vakıf and Konya carpets can be seen here in all its detail, including elaborate crests, hooked devices and claws. The dating of such pieces as the Marby and Ming carpets to the first half of the 15th century is generally confirmed by a parallel trend in their painted representations. This type of carpet appears less frequently in the paintings of the second half of the 15th century than the first half, and no new types seem to occur.
İn summary we must conclude that artists of the 14th and 15th centuries adopted the animal-figured carpet more than any other type of carpet as a favorite to paint. Paintings of carpets with geometric sections filled with totally geometric motifs do exist, but they are in the minority. (Actually they may have been the commoner type of carpet used by people of this period.) With the help of paintings, we can date the existing carpets and trace their apparent disappearance from the market. As examples of animal-figured carpets began to disappear from Western paintings in the second half of the 15th century to be replaced by carpets with geometric compositions, so also probably did the carpet designs change.
The group of animal figured carpets as a whole was faithful throughout the 14th and 15th centuries to the fundamental techniques and design concepts of the Selçuk carpets as were the possibly more numerous geometric carpets of the period. And yet, at the same time, the weavers were gradually beginning to possess a compositional sense and to use a group of motifs which were to lead to the major developments in Turkish carpets during the 16th and 17th centuries. This was, basically, the scheme of geometric filler motifs within a field divided into square sections.