THE BALTIMORE VASE CARPET AT SOTHEBY'S

The vase carpet's sad outcome, however, merits closer attention as another case in which matters have not been exactly what they seemed. It had indeed never belonged to the Berlin museums. When it had come into Sotheby's hands for sale, they consulted various people in the field, including one authority who told them off hand that he believed it to be the Berlin rug, sold to buy a treasure (mentioned in the catalog), and referred them to the former Berlin curator cited in the catalog, who apparently confirmed the story. A few days before the auction I received from Dr. Jens Kroger, who has been in charge of the Museum fur Islamische Kunst in Berlin during the extended illness of the Director, Dr. Brisch, a letter complaining about the entry in the Sotheby catalog as "all wrong." He pointed out that there were actually two carpets, Pope having illustrated the Baltimore carpet in the Survey as the Berlin one; and that there is no entry of the vase carpet having "ever left the Schlossmuseum." Having a reasonably good photograph of the complete Berlin rug, Schlossmuseum 98.1 , I could check it against the various illustrations. It was clearly not the same rug as the Baltimore carpet but a quite close counterpart to it, in far better condition. The Berlin carpet's lower part is shown as Pl. 6 of Vol. II of Sarre & Trenkwald. A section across its center appears as fig. 96 of the 1955 Bode & Kühnel and later versions of the same. The upper part is shown as fig. 70 of Erdmann's 1955 Der Or. Knupfteppiche and its later versions. The Baltimore Vase Carpet, and a detail showing the sixth row of palmettes filled with tiny millefleur rosettes. At Sotheby's it was estimated at $100,000 - $150,000. It opened at $50,000 and reached $95,000, failing to sell.

The clearest difference between the two carpets is in the two light-colored panels which lie in the sixth row down from the top of the field, diagonally below the panels with inverted vases. It can best be seen by comparing the cuts in the Survey, Pl. 1222 for the Baltimore rug, with fig. 70 of Erdmann's Oriental Carpets for the Berlin piece. These light panels are ornamented with tiny millefleur rosettes lined up along thin red stems which rise at sharp angles from a central stem, but at the top of the panel these stems are horizontal and this horizontality is carried farther down the panel and handled more obtrusively in the Berlin carpet. These little stems cannot be followed in the color plate in the auction catalog, their redness tending to disappear in a general orange cast. Careful comparison of the two carpets will yield a number of small discrepancies between them, as in the decoration of the inverted vase mentioned, at the left. The Berlin carpet appears to have been in much better shape, without the discolored streaks of reweaving which disturb the effect of the Baltimore piece. Their measurements are very similar. Sotheby gives for the Baltimore carpet 23'6"x8'9". Beattie gave 23'2"x8'10", and the San Francisco catalog 23'2"x8'10". Erdmann gave 23'5"x8'6" (715x260 cm.) for the Berlin rug, three inches narrower. A carpet of that size can vary that much from end to end, even more!

I notified Sotheby's carpet department by phone several days before the auction that they were not selling the Berlin carpet, but its pair. Apparently, however, there was no announcement made at the sale.

There remains the question of what has happened to the Berlin carpet. I have myself long had mental indigestion over that problem, having been told many years ago that Berlin had sold the small Kashan silk carpet, this vase carpet, and the armorial Spanish carpet 07.151 (most recently mentioned in May Beattie's article in OCTS II) to raise money to purchase an excavated treasure. I was assured in Berlin that this vase carpet, Schlossmuseum 98.1, had burned with the others that were stored in the Mint, in the 1945 bomb conflagration. When Erdmann reviewed the carpet section of Pope's Survey in Ars Islamica, published in 1941, and discussed the Berlin and Baltimore rugs as a pair on pp. 180, 181 and p. 136, the Baltimore piece of course then being Mackay, he spoke of the Berlin rug as still in the Schlossmuseum. In the 1955 Knüpfteppiche, which I translated, it was (1945 verbrannt) and in the 1955 Bode & Kühnel it was vernichtet, which means that it was, not just burnt, but a wipe-out, completely destroyed.

I still did not feel entirely satisfied about all this, and when I examined what burned fragments and pieces and bits there were in the East Berlin storage in 1964, and then again with Dr. Beattie in 1965, there is no record in my notebooks of my seeing any bit whatever from 98.1. If it was in the fire, apparently it was indeed vernichtet. I still must wonder just a little. The people concerned with the carpets in Berlin have come to the museums since the war and are too young to have had personal acquaintance with the events of 1945 and this vase carpet's previous story. They must speak from museum records, which are not always perfect or complete.

In his series of articles on carpets in Heimtex, no. 13, "Die Kriegsverluste der Berliner Museum Verbrannte Teppiche" in issue 10 of October, 1961, Kurt Erdmann illustrated 10 rugs which were considered to be Persian, with comments. Carpet 98.1 was not included. He started the following article, no. 14 in the issue 11 of November, "In der leztien Nummer der Heimtex wurden die zehn persischen Teppiche besprochen, die gegen Ende des Krieges im Tieftresor der Münze verbrannt sint" (the 10 Persian carpets were discussed which were burned toward the war's end in the deep basement of the Mint). These articles were republished in 1966, after Erdmann's death, as Siebenhundert Jahre Orientteppich. The same 10 "Persian" rugs appeared, pp. 77-82, as the first part of the chapter, "Die Friegsverluste der Berliner Museen", without mention of 98.I. However, beginning on p. 246 a tabulation of the illustrations was added by the editor, providing comparative and other information. For fig. 83, which was the ruined vase carpet 1.2656, we find a very confused note, which has been very closely translated for fig. 157 of Seven Hundred Years of Oriental Carpets as "...(inv. Nr. 1.2656....Lit. A. U. Pope, Survey Pl. 1229. A companion piece formerly in the collection of Lady Baillie (A. U. Pope, Survey, Pl. 1225, in colour. Another in the Cl. H. Mackay Collection. Sarre-Trenkwald, II, Pl. 7 and A. U. Pope, Survey, Pl. 1222). The Berlin piece was destroyed during the war and the Mackay piece is in the Baltimore Museum." Of course the Baltimore carpet and Berlin 98.1 were not counterparts of Berlin 1.2656 and the Baillie carpet, which were normal three-plane vase carpets, and the Survey 1222 caption was incorrect. There is still the question, did 98.1 slip Erdmann's mind, or did he omit it deliberately when he said that 10 Persian carpets only were burnt?

Clear evidence may yet be forthcoming that carpet 98.1 was still in the Berlin museum system at the beginning of World War II, or appeared in a contemporary list of the pieces deposited in the Mint by 1945. Otherwise it may to this day lurk somewhere in the world, like the Spanish armorial carpet, to reappear some day. That day, however, was not December 5th last.

Nevertheless, the Baltimore Museum of Art's vase carpet does represent a very rare type. Unless the Berlin 98.1 survives, it is the only known complete carpet of this variety, in which panels of many different colors have been marked off by sprightly, budded vines with small rosettes and other floral forms where these vines meet, and a single, prominent blossom or a vase upon a bracket in each of the panels. The upper part of a somewhat later example, formerly in the collection of Miss E. T. Brown (Survey, Pl. 1221) was reportedly in an English private collection some years ago and almost surely the right-hand portion of its lower half, with new borders, was in the hands of Vitali Madjar in Cairo (Wiet 1935, P1. 18). Nothing else. An imitation of the Brown piece, more successful as a magazine cover than when seen at the back, was in the German art market at one time. There is apparently an excellent market for handsome classic rugs. The reports on this Baltimore carpet, from various sources, were that it showed too much wear and past damage to please such purchasers and that as a 17th century piece, it was woven too late in that century to excite them.

"Contrary to other carpets from the Kunstgewerbemuseum (Schlossmuseum), we have no records which would show that it was ever on loan to the Islamische Abteilung. Possibly that is why it never features in any official list of burned or lost carpets of the Islamische Abteilung.

"The inventory of the Kunstgewerbemuseum clearly says that the silk carpet 98.48 now in Lisbon was exchanged against pieces of the Welfenschatz according to decree of February 2, 1936. There is however no entry of the sort for 98.1."