File:A Safavid red-ground 'Palmette and Bird' carpet, possibly Qazvin, north Persia, circa 1565-1575.jpg

English: Text: [1]

A SAFAVID RED-GROUND 'PALMETTE AND BIRD' CARPET POSSIBLY QAZVIN, NORTH PERSIA, CIRCA 1565-1575

Wool pile on a silk and cotton foundation, lacking outer stripe, areas of negligible wear, localised reweaves and restoration, sides rebound, an additional tape applied on all four sides 16ft.9in. x 7ft.3in. (517cm. x 225cm.)

Text: [2] Woven in the imperial workshops in Qazvin (in modern-day Iran) between 1565 and 1575, during the reign of Shah Tahmasp I (1514-1576), the 16th-century masterpiece is, according to Louise Broadhurst, Christie’s head of Rugs & Carpets, ‘an exceptional survivor’, having travelled from Iran through Europe, the United States and Asia.

Knotted and entwined with spiralling vines and palmettes, the rich burgundy-red carpet features birds thought to be pheasants with elongated plumes, and cascades of flowers framed by a deep midnight-blue border. There are 17 colours woven into the fabric, ‘a mesmerising kaleidoscope’, says Broadhurst, who notes that the technical skill required to fix and make stable natural dyes that have lasted for more than 400 years is ‘quite exceptional’.

Though originally made for the Safavid dynasty, carpets of this kind soon became highly prized items in the royal courts of Europe. By the 17th century, paintings of noblemen by Dutch and Flemish masters would often include depictions of Persian carpets to indicate their subjects’ wealth, status and cultivation.

They were particularly prized for their rich iridescence, created by weaving silk through the foundation of the carpet; but silk is very fragile and prone to deterioration. ‘By the 19th century these carpets had become a rare and expensive commodity only available to the very rich,’ says the specialist.

It is thought that the Rothschilds bought their carpet from the fashionable art and antiquities dealer Joseph Duveen around 1876. Responsible for filling the houses of financiers and industrialists with the finest decorative arts, Duveen was an advisor to the Fricks, the Rockefellers, the Rothschilds and the Vanderbilts.

When Edmond de Rothschild died, in 1934, many of his treasures (among them some 40,000 Old Master drawings) were donated to the Louvre in Paris. The house remained as part of the Rothschild estate, although it was later requisitioned by Hermann Göring during the Second World War to serve as his Luftwaffe officers’ club.

The carpet was sold in the 1970s, some three decades after the Hôtel de Pontalba had been acquired by the United States’ diplomatic mission in Paris. It has since been owned by the Vatican’s financier Roberto Calvi, nicknamed ‘God’s Banker’, who died in mysterious circumstances in London in 1982, and by the American businessman and composer Gordon P. Getty.

Broadhurst describes the carpet as ‘the collector’s dream’, adding that ‘Carpets bring to life a collection — they have a story behind them that perhaps other works of art can’t portray.’