Oriental carpets in Renaissance painting

Carpets of Middle-Eastern origin, either from Anatolia, Persia, Armenia, Levant, the Mamluk state of Egypt or Northern Africa, were used as decorative features in Western European paintings from the 14th century onwards.

Comparative research based on Renaissance paintings and carpets preserved in museums and collections continues to contribute to the expanding body of art historical and cultural knowledge.

[5] The depiction of Oriental carpets in Renaissance paintings is regarded as an important contribution to a "world history of art", based upon interactions of different cultural traditions.

[6] Rugs from the Islamic world arrived in large numbers in Western Europe by the 15th century, which is increasingly recognized as a pivotal temporal nexus in the cultural encounters that contributed to the development of Renaissance ideas, arts, and sciences.

[7] Lessing's approach has proven very useful to establish a scientific chronology of Oriental carpet weaving, and was further elaborated and expanded mainly by scholars of the "Berlin school" of History of Islamic art: Wilhelm von Bode, and his successors Friedrich Sarre, Ernst Kühnel, and Kurt Erdmann developed the "ante quem" method for the dating of oriental carpets based on Renaissance paintings.

These art historians were also aware of the fact that their scientific approach was biased: Only carpets produced by manufactories were exported to Western Europe, and consequently were available to the Renaissance artists.

Not until the mid twentieth century, when collectors like Joseph V. McMullan or James F. Ballard recognized the artistic and art historic value of village or nomadic carpets, were they appreciated in the Western World.

[11] The Medieval trader and traveler Marco Polo himself mentioned that the carpets produced at Konya were the best in the world: ...et ibi fiunt soriani et tapeti pulchriores de mundo et pulchrioris coloris.

[16] European depictions of Oriental carpets were extremely faithful to the originals, judging by comparison with the few surviving examples of actual rugs of contemporary date.

Most carpets use Islamic geometric designs, with the earliest ones also using animal patterns such as the originally Chinese-inspired "phoenix-and-dragon", as in Domenico di Bartolo's Marriage of the Foundlings (1440).

One of these carpets was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art,[20] which parallels a painting by the Sienese artist Gregorio di Cecco, The Marriage of the Virgin, 1423.

[24] Oriental carpets were often depicted as a decorative element in religious scenes, and were a symbol of luxury, status and taste,[25] although they were becoming more widely available throughout the period, which is reflected in the paintings.

When Western scholars explored the history of Islamic carpetmaking, several types of carpet pattern became conventionally called after the names of European painters who had used them, and these terms remain in use.

Both Giovanni Bellini and his brother Gentile (who visited Istanbul in 1479) painted examples of prayer rugs with a single "re-entrant" or keyhole motif at the bottom of a larger figure traced in a thin border.

[38] These are named after Hans Memling, who painted several examples of what may have been Armenian carpets in the last quarter of the fifteenth century, and are characterised by several lines coming off the motifs that end in "hooks", by coiling in on themselves through two or three 90° turns.

[50] A carpet closely related to the 1483 painting by Domenico Ghirlandaio was found by A. Boralevi in the Evangelical church, Hâlchiu (Heldsdorf) in Transylvania, attributed to Western Anatolia, and dated to the late 15th century.

[61] The carpet pattern depicted on van Eyck's Paele Madonna could be traced back to late Roman origins and related to early Islamic floor mosaics found in the Umayyad palace of Khirbat al-Mafjar.

[62] Similar, but not identical carpets appear in the Lucca Madonna, Dresden triptych, and Virgin and Child with Saints paintings which show a predominantly geometric design with a lozenge composition in infinite repeat, built up from fine bands which connect eight-pointed stars.

Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel the Elders Christ in the House of Mary and Martha, 1628, shows the characteristic S-stems ending in double sickle-shaped lancet leaves.

They are characterized by large dark blue star shaped primary medallions in infinite repeat on a red ground field containing a secondary floral scroll.

[79] Anthony van Dyck's royal and aristocratic subjects had mostly progressed to Persian carpets, but less wealthy sitters are still shown with the Turkish types.

Many Armenians left their homes in Western Armenia ruled by Ottoman Turkey and founded craft centers of carpet weaving in Gherla, Transylvania.

Painters of the Dutch Golden Age showed their skill by depiction of light effects on table-carpets, like Vermeer in his Music Lesson (Royal Collection).

Following this hypothesis, the lack of contemporary Western European written sources, which could otherwise provide independent evidence to support Gantzhorn's claims, is explained by the fact that the knowledge of the hidden symbols was subject to oral tradition, and restricted to a small religious élite.

The Armenian genocide had led to the loss of the oral tradition, and, subsequently, to an incorrect "Islamic" attribution of the carpets by the majority of Western art historians.

Assorted valuable, exotic objects like Chinese porcelain bowls and animals like parrots are depicted, often with an allegorical meaning, or symbolizing "vanitas", the futility of human life.

The stage-like setting for St Mark's sermon is adorned by exotic animals like a camel and a giraffe, as well as architectural elements like an ancient Egyptian obelisk, in the background.

The use of the central medallion of an Oriental carpet to highlight the nimbus of Christ, however, represents a special case: The use of the motif could either have resulted from a mere similarity of the two pictorial patterns, but it can also be understood as an assertion of Renaissance Christian predominance.

Europeans had reasons to fear the Islamic world: in 1529 Suleiman the Magnificent was besieging Vienna, and the Ottoman Empire remained a constant threat to Western Europe until the late 17th century.

In his 1502–9 cycle of the Piccolomini library frescoes at the Dome of Siena, Pinturicchio depicts Pope Pius II convoking, as the Latin inscription explains, a Diet of Princes at Mantua to proclaim a new crusade in 1459.