OKNAMENTATION OF CAEPETS COLE. 137 



The contemporary richly colored illuminations of Mohammedan 

 MSS. and of book covers reflect the style of the engraved and dama- 

 scened metal work. And from both are directly descended the com- 

 positions of color and form which are woven in the more magnificent 

 cut-pile carpets that were manufactured in Persia from the fifteenth 

 century onward. They practically superseded the carpets of simpler 

 design during the fourteenth century and earlier. 



The first of my slides, to illustrate a few of these finer types, is 

 from a carpet possibly of fifteenth-century manufacture. Silver 

 threads are inwoven with the colored cut pile of fine wool. The 

 border of cartouches inscribed with Persian characters incloses the 

 field, at the center of which is a circular device which, as we have 

 seen, is a feature of Chinese and Mongolian rug designs. At each 

 of the inner corners of the borders are segments of Persianesque 

 panels shaped and treated so as to suggest the shape of a conven- 

 tional lotus flower. Within the central circular band is a four-lobed 

 ornament — each lobe containing a peacock, which is a favorite subject 

 of Persian and Mogul Indian ornament. Over the main part of the 

 field are many long and short wavy devices usually identified as 

 Tatar cloud devices and of frequent occurrence in Chinese ornament. 



The next slide (pi. 5, fig. 1) exhibits a carpet with a border of 

 cartouches having inscriptions of which an interpretation, as given 

 in the great Viennese work on oriental carpets, mentions the Shah, 

 for whom the carpet was made, and states that " within the fair 

 border of this field you see a flower^^ bed, refreshing and lovely as 

 the paradise in Eden. To Chinese art its beauty is an object of env}^" 

 (This is clearly an indirect though palpable acknowledgment of the 

 superiority of Chinese art, as known to the Persians.) And then fol- 

 lows a good deal more about the garden, and turtledoves and nightin- 

 gales. But on looking into the design itself, at the center of the 

 field we see a group of four lions, nose to nose, surrounded by fine 

 spiral stems and Tatar clouds. At the top and bottom of this group 

 is a pomegranate inclosed by two serrated long narrow leaves, charged 

 with small sprays of flowers precisely like those on so-called Rhodian 

 plates, and inside the pomegi'anate are a pair of peacocks. Bej^ond 

 is a symmetrical distribution of fanciful floral ornament, lions, tigers, 

 or cheetahs springing on antelopes — nothing in fact to suggest the 

 serenity of flowers and birds referred to in the inscription, which 

 may have been by chance the handiest, though not the most apposite, 

 for the weaver to use. 



The next slide (pi. 5, fig. 2) is from a carpet made in 1540 for the 

 mosque at Ardebil — a town in the northwest of Persia and not far 

 from Caucasia and the southwestern shore of the Caspian Sea. The 

 wider part of the border is designed with alternating circular cusped 

 panels and elongated panels, not inscribed but decorated with flowers 



