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Antique Khotan carpet, East Turkestan, late nineteenth century
At first glance it appears that the sumptuous fretwork border is the glory of this exquisite antique Khotan. Precisely meandering designs of this type are very difficult to weave, and the treatment of this pattern here must really be counted as a technical tour-de-force. But the field too is quite remarkable. Initially it seems to consist of a staggered array of small red circles. A closer look, however, reveals that they are spots like those on a leopard or a panther, indicating that this Khotan is the heir of a long tradition of Central Asian rugs that imitated animal pelts. Some rug scholars argue that indeed, all pile carpets originated as man-made decorative replicas of furry hides, and that the rare examples that preserve a genuine pelt pattern are proof of this origin. What is remarkable here is that the natural pelt design has been rendered in a sufficiently formal manner to work well with the classic geometry of the fretwork in the border. And finally, the complementary effects of the palette with its soft reds, tans, and chocolate brown all set the design elements off to great effect.
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