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Persia (?), seventeenth century
Wool
477 x 200 cm
Inv. no. T.99
Carpet with original composition starting from a central lozenge, with serrated border, completely decorated with flowers and four medallions around a rosette. The first lozenge is followed successively by concentric lozenges in distinct colours with the same borders also decorated with flowers. In the four corners of the field, on a zig-zag ground in blue and white representing the sea, there are maritime scenes, with a vessel with figures in European dress and someone swimming, as well as some maritime fauna. The red border is decorated with arabesques, palmettes and surrounded by inner borders in a light colour scattered with flowers.
The maritime scenes in the corners of the field are probably related to episodes relevant to the Portuguese passage to the Far East, which gave this kind of carpet its name.
There are scarcely more than a dozen of carpets with this decorative theme and these are to be found in the Museum of Decorative Arts in Vienna, Lyons Museum, the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
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