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A Subtle Play of Opposites

Antique Oushak Carpet 40781

From a relatively early time in the Ottoman period, the town of Oushak in westernTurkey has been a major center of rug production. Many of the great masterpieces of early Turkish carpet weaving from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries have been attributed to this center. The great star and medallion Oushak carpets of the late fifteenth to seventeenth century were made there, and it is even possible that the various carpets of the so-called “Holbein” type of family were products of Oushak as well. To say the very least, Oushak has a major claim to a long and distinguished tradition of rug weaving which has continued right up into modern times.

After the seventeenth century, however, the development of Oushak rug weaving is less well known. A number of very large palatial scale carpets of eighteenth-century date have been attributed to Oushak, and also to the town of Smyrna further to the West on the coast of Turkey. These later Oushak or Smyrna carpets tend to have elements derived from the medallion and Star Oushaks, but arranged as allover designs, and in a much coarser or robust weaving technique that corresponded to the large size of the carpets and their designs. Rugs of this sort continued to be woven into the nineteenth century although in far fewer numbers, so far as we can tell. This eighteenth and earlier nineteenth century development should be seen within the larger setting of Oriental rug production at this time, which was a period of decline, not in quality but in scale because of the falling off of the European market. European taste had moved away from Oriental rugs in favor of local European productions like Aubusson, Savonnerie, and Axminsterwhich produced carpets in a native, classically-derived European style. Against this background it would seem that the larger eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Oushak or Smyrna carpets were made for affluent local Turkish consumption and to a limited extent for the Turkish territories of Eastern Europe.

All this changed after the middle of the nineteenth century when Ushak, now Oushak, re-emerged as a major center of production in keeping with the larger revival of oriental rug production in Turkey and Persia at this time. A large and expanding middle class in the Europe and the United States created a sudden new demand for Oriental rugs, and like many other rug producing centers with a long history behind them at this time, Oushak quickly rose to meet it. We might expect the weavers of the Oushak region at this time to have embarked on a major revival of their greatest hits from their heyday in the Ottoman period, with copies or adaptations of Star and Medallion Oushak types and the like, but this is exactly what did not happen. Times had definitely changed, and Persia had initially taken the lead in the new production of rugs for the western market. Consequently, it was the floral designs of Persian type, both in medallion and allover formats, that now commanded the market, and it was designs of this type that the Oushak weavers began to develop. And they adapted to this new demand for room size decorative carpets very quickly and in the most remarkable ways.

Antique Oushak Carpet 41842

41842from the Nazmiyal Collection is perhaps one of the more meticulously drawn of this late nineteenth century generation of Oushaks. The piece displays an allover repeat design of classical Persian palmettes arranged in rows and linked by delicate vines, with similar elements adapted to the linear format of the border. Oushaks like this were competing with the Ziegler Mahal or Sultanabad production in contemporary Persia. But their color sensibility is softer and more delicate in keeping with the lustrous silky wool that is the hallmark of the best antique Oushaks.

Antique Oushak Carpet 42078	Antique Oushak Carpet 42044

Another example of this type is Nazmiyal 42078 whose palette also bears the imprint of Sultanabad Persian designs. Nazmiyal 42044 has a Persianate design, but in the classically soft Oushak coloration, and the proportions are larger and more monumental, in keeping with the grand scale design and size of the Oushak and Smyrna carpets of the eighteenth and earlier nineteenth centuries discussed above.

Antique Oushak Carpet 40781

Nazmiyal 40781 too plays off classical Persian designs, in this case the palmettes, dragons, and leaping animals of classical Persian hunting carpets. Again we see the distinctive Oushak coloration and the bold large-scale treatment of the design elements. But this example also exemplifies the more rugged style of drawing that becomes another hallmark of such decorative Oushak carpets.

The origin of this more animated and rugged drawing is not immediately clear, but one can hazard a guess. During the century and a half or so after 1700, when the European appetite for Oriental rugs had fallen off, the volume of workshop weaving in Oushak must have diminished considerably. When the Western appetite for Oriental carpets suddenly increased in the later nineteenth century, the number of weavers still active in Oushak itself could not have met this demand, so the town manufacturies had to turn to the village weavers of the surrounding areas who had maintained a continuous weaving tradition for centuries. Such village weavers had tended to produce smaller rugs with a strong tribal sensibility. They made rugs with bold geometric designs and rugged kinetic drawing, using large knots and all-wool foundations. Clearly when these weavers became incorporated into the town Oushak industry, they carried over all of their tribal traditions and sensibilities into the new production of Persianizing large-scale decorative carpets. It will not have been to difficult to fuse such tribal village traditions with the existing town Oushak industry that had continued from the somewhat earlier Ushak and Smyna large-scale rug production. In this way the style and technique of the Oushak carpets of the later nineteenth and earlier twentieth centuries was born.

Antique Oushak Carpet 3040	Antique Oushak Carpet 668

We can really sense this tribal background in several other Oushaks from the Nazmiyal Collection. Numbers 3040 and 668 again display a vine and palmette design of Persian derivation, but combined with oblong cartouches also of classical Persian origin. The feeling of these designs is so strongly geometrical that many observers may not even recognize the floral quality of the designs. This geometry comes out especially in the angularity of the vinescrolls, some of which even become zig-zags.

Antique Oushak Carpet 2455

Antique Oushak Carpet 2952

Nazmiyal 2455 has a medallion and cornerpiece format in the field with a grand palmette vinescroll border, all features of classical Persian derivation. But here above all we can sense the crisp, rugged geometry that transforms the medallion into a diamond and the cornerpieces into stepped triangles, not to mention the angularity that is present in the minor detail as well. To appreciate this geometric transformation fully, we have only to compare 2455 to another medallion Oushak, Nazmiyal 2952, one of the more unusual examples of this kind that managed to adhere strictly to the more fluid, sinuous drawing of classical Persian and Ottoman forerunners.

But despite the bold geometry and tribal sensibility that is so basic to room-size Oushaks from the decades around 1900, they nevertheless remain one of the most elegant types of room-size decorative carpet available in the current market. This is undoubtedly due to two factors – their coloration and their wool. The sweetness and warmth of the Oushak palette, relying as it does on soft terracottas, cinnamons, and golds, as well as delicate blues, grays, greens, saffron, and ivory, goes a long way to mollifying and balancing the honest strength of their designs. Similarly, the soft lustrous silken quality of the wool, especially in the so-called “Angora Oushaks,” endows these carpets with an incomparably tactile softness and gentility. Ultimately, the appeal of Oushak carpets is the result of a marvelous balance of opposites – the contrast between monumentality and delicacy, between boldness and subtlety, and between classical urban and village tribal design or taste. Few Oriental rug genres can pull off such a tour-de force. But the credit for this achievement goes not only to the Oushak weavers and designers themselves, but also to the complex circumstances behind the development of these carpets.

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