9.1 x 11.2 Antique Bidjar Carpet, Calyx Design, Kurdistan Province, Northwest Persia, Circa 1910
This is a carpet that photographs do not do justice to. It is beautiful in person and in superb condition.
One could posit that no collection of antique Bidjar rugs, or Kurdish rugs in general, is complete without an example with a version of the Calyx design. Part of the problem in that sense is that the format is perhaps the least common of all designs used in the wide ranging Bidjar design repertoire. This antique Bidjar carpet is part of a relatively uncommon group of Bidjars featuring a “Calyx” design. The red background is decorated with large flowers and ancillary floral elements. There is an excellent range of color, including red, navy, coral, sky blue, mid blue, green, a brownish aubergine and light camel color.
The Oxford Dictionary defines a Calyx as “the ring of small green leaves (called sepals) that protect a flower before it opens.” The Cambridge Dictionary describes it slightly differently as “the outer part of a flower formed by the sepals (the separate outer parts), which covers and protects the petals, etc as they develop.”
A work of art (in this case furnishing fabric) in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London called “Calyx” was made in Great Britain in 1951 and has this notation: “Textile designer Lucienne Day (1917 – 2010) graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1940, but her career breakthrough came with the launch of her pioneering contemporary textile ‘Calyx’, designed for the Festival of Britain in 1951, which embodied the energy and optimism of the postwar period.”
Antique Oriental carpets often featured designs decades ahead of their Western counterparts, though it is noteworthy that a form of the Calyx design was used by the ancient Greeks and/or Romans in architectural columns. The University of Chicago refers to an article written by Philip Smith, B.A., of the University of London based on “A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, John Murray, London 1875” that reads: “III. The Corinthian Order is still more slender than the Ionic, and is especially characterized by its beautiful capital, which is said to have been suggested to the mind of the celebrated sculptor Callimachus by the sight of a basket, covered by a tile, and overgrown by the leaves of an acanthus, on which it had accidentally been placed. The lowest member of the capital, answering to the hypotrachelium, is a sort of calyx (calathus), from p327 which spring generally two rows of acanthus leaves…”
The border system of this carpet features a navy blue major border with scrolling vines, leaves and polychromatic flowers, complemented by a series of four inner minor borders and four outer minor borders. Shades of red, coral, sky blue, two greens, navy, ivory, camel, aubergine and mid blue are seen in the field and/or borders.
To my eye, this Bidjar carpet has the charming aesthetics reminiscent of William Morris carpets woven in England in the late 19th century. While this carpet was probably woven in the first decade or so of the 20th century, we have had Calyx design Bidjar carpets that appear to have been woven 20 or 30 years earlier, and Morris carpets were often based on much earlier Safavid Dynasty (circa 1501 – 1722) “classical” period carpets. The commonality of forms and character from different regions and different periods can be fascinating and this carpet would serve as a great foundation for a room decorated in many different styles.
This Bidjar carpet will be our advertsiement in the January 2025 issue of The Magazine Antiques.
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Please, call Helen or Douglas at (781) 205-9817 for price or other information.
