SOLD FOR GBP 40,320 ,
A 'LOTTO' RUG
PROBABLY USHAK, WEST ANATOLIA, EARLY 16TH CENTURY. Christie’s.
Got €4,500 RB 29 May 2021, lot 107
The second Lotto carpet in this auction also belonged to Martina Limburger von Hoffmann of Leipzig, and has been continuously owned by the family since the early 20th century at the latest. Martina Limburger von Hoffmann ran a large house, collected art and was in contact with the museum curators and antique dealers of the day. However, the surviving documents offer no information as to who bought this lottery and when this purchase was made. – On the red ground, golden yellow arabesques and geometrically stylized blossoms and leaves combine into the characteristic repeat of hermetically interlocked crosses and larger octagons. In this example it is drawn in the so-called kilim style. The main border design of cassettes enclosing diagonal crosses and linked by overlapping crosses placed between them is rather rare in Lotto carpets. A so-called Bellini niche and re-entrant carpet (see Eskenazi), which probably dates from the same period as our Lotto, shows an identical border. There are three further Lottos with this border: a larger carpet in the Bavarian National Museum, Munich, that is closely related to our Lotto in style; a Lotto published by Schürmann about the same size as our piece; and a Lotto of later date (17th century) formerly in the Bernheimer Collection. – Obvious signs of age and wear, low pile, old repairs. The yellow outer borders have been repiled on both sides, and there is one repiled stripe in the outer border at the top.
Lit.: ESKENAZI, JOHNNY, The Oriental Carpet from the 15th to the 18th Century. London 1981, p. 5 *** CURATOLA, GIOVANNI, Carpets. Milan 1981, no. 5 (Munich Museum) *** SCHÜRMANN, ULRICH, Carpets from the Orient. Wiesbaden 1976, ill. p. 57 *** BERNHEIMER, OTTO, Old Carpets from the 16th to 18th Centuries by the Firm L. Bernheimer. Munich 1959, picture 6
