Safavid Silk Carpet Fragment

A fragment of a so-called 'Polonaise' silk and metal-thread carpet, named for the type long thought to be Polish but in fact woven in the royal manufactories of Shah Abbas for diplomatic gift. The field is patterned with a lattice of arabesque cartouches enclosing palmettes of pale rose, ivory and celadon, the effect at once luminous and ethereal.

Such carpets were prized in seventeenth-century Europe and frequently appear in Dutch portraiture.