Provenance: Danish private collection. Acquired at Sotheby´s, London, 6 may, 1977. lot. 178. To the best of our knowledge the present example is one of three known knotted Polonaise rugs in Denmark. The first, the exceptional Danish “Polonaise” coronation carpet(Inv. Mus. nr. 21.1.). The second, a Polonaise Isfahan rug(Inv. nr. 31/25c). Both part of the Royal Collections at Rosenborg Palace.

Literature (Related Ex.): Friedrich Spuhler, Preben Mellby-Hansen and Maiken Thorkildsen. The Royal Collections Rosenborg Palace, 1987. 1987. Denmark’s coronation carpets, plate I-II.

Related examples: A. U. Pope, Survey of Persian Art, Vol. III, plate 1256. Kurt Erdmann, Siebenhundert Jahre Orienteppiche, 1966, Germany, Tafel IV. Sarre and Trenkwald 1926, Vol. I, plates 25 and 30. Mumford, John Kimberly, The Yerkes Collection of Oriental Carpets, New York, 1910, pl. XII. Valentiner, Wilhelm, Catalogue of a Loan Exhibition of Early Oriental Rugs, New York, 1910, no. 35. The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Illustrated Handbook of The W. A. Clark Collection, The Corcoran Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C.: W. F. Roberts Company, 1928, p. 77, illustrated p. 113. “Carpets for the Great Shah: The Near-Eastern Carpets from the W. A. Clark Collection,” The Corcoran Gallery of Art Bulletin, Washington, D.C., Vol. 2, No. 1, October 1948, p. 23. Friedrich Spuhler’s article ‘Entwurfspraktiken safawidischer Hofmanufakturen am Beispiel der sog. Polenteppiche’, Hali, Autumn, 1978, pp. 244–47.

In 1878, a number of silk and metal-thread carpets from the collection of Prince Ladislas Czartoryski were exhibited at the Paris International Exhibition. As some of the carpets displayed the Czartoryski coat-of-arms it was assumed that these rugs were made in Poland. It was later recognized that this group, distinguished by a silk pile and metallic brocading, was Persian, made during the reign of Shah Abbas I (1587 – 1628.) The Safavids ruled Greater Iran from 1501–1722 and again from 1729–1736. The Polish attribution, however, persisted, and these carpets still bear the name ‘Polonaise’. In 1945 a Czartoryski Polonaise (inv.no.45.106) with five unattributed coats-of-arms was given to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, by John D Rockefeller, Jr., onetime owner of the present example.

The design of these weavings is derived from the repertoire of earlier Persian motifs but the rich silk pile, highlighted with gold and silver brocading, and muted but lively colors, signals a change from the past. These luxurious carpets epitomize the wealth and opulent taste of the 16th and 17th century Persian Court. The taste for the lavish Shah Abbas style was disseminated through ambassadorial and trade routes with the West where ‘Polonaise’ carpets found great favor with the Baroque nobility of the 17th century European Courts.

Some examples still remain in old European collections, such as the Duke of Buccleuch, the Marquess of Salisbury and the Princes of Liechtenstein, some have passed to national and private museums in Italy, Germany, Holland, Austria, France, Denmark, Portugal, Russia, Poland and Hungary, to name a few. Several of those which left Europe for the US, particularly in the late 19th and early 20th century when the great tycoons were forming their collections, are now in American museums.

The glamour associated with the ownership of such carpets has persisted and Polonaise carpets have long been objects of desire in the most prestigious of collections from the Medicis of 17th century Italy to the most eminent families of the 20th century.