Antique Indian Textile Rug 41493

Antique Indian Velvet Textile, 19th Century - This sumptuous antique Indian velvet textile is based upon the silk twill textiles of the early Byzantine and early Umayyad or Islamic periods. The pattern of circular medallions or roundels with figural equestrian hunting scenes of this kind was originally Sassanian Persian. During the sixth and seventh centuries such Sassanian silks were imitated by the workshops in Constantinople, and they continued to be made in Persia under Early Islamic or Umayyad rule in the eighth century. Here the design is adapted to the velvet technique used by the Ottoman Turks and Safavid Persians in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. As such the piece is eclectic, but it reproduces the luxuriousness and elegance of the various prototypes with remarkable fidelity and technical mastery.