Provenance: The Goethe Museum/Schloss Jägerhof, Dusseldorf, Germany. The present carpet was part of the interior at Schloss Jägerhof, the lecture room and the presentation room of the Ernst Georg Schneider collection.

Schloss Jägerhof was built as a hunting lodge in the middle of the 18th century, and it became the centre of the social and cultural life of the city. Since 1955 Jägerhof has been a museum and home to the Goethe Museum and the Ernst Schneider Foundation.

The expansion of the British Empire in the 19th century led to an increased market for exotic goods from the new territories. Commissions for high-quality carpets were received from many stately homes in England, and there was also demand from the new mercantile classes that had emerged in Victorian England. The British Raj supervised and controlled the resurgence of the carpet production in India to meet these requirements. Weaving centres were established in the Indian jails where looms were erected and prisoners were instructed by Master weavers. The quality of the carpets was exceptional, using the finest pure wool for the tight hand-knotted pile. Their designs were inspired by the classical Persian and Mughal carpets of the 16th and 17th centuries.

The most famous of these weaving centres was the Agra Jail, close to the Taj Mahal, where a carpet of enormous proportions (23×12 m) was created for the Waterloo Chamber at Windsor Castle and was presented to Queen Victoria as a gift when she became Empress of India.

European designers praised carpets like these for their delicate ornamentation and harmonious colours and the excellence of these woven works of art has ensured their demand and they remain much sought after to this day.