Day 169 - Dream carpet



July 18 , 2019

I walk into Gallery 463 and see the carpet of my dreams. But it is so large (perhaps 30 or 35 feet long and 12 feet wide) that I would have to build the house of my dreams to accommodate it! Made in Lahore in the mid-17th century, with a cotton warp and weft and a wool pile, its pattern consists of flowers, "sunbursts," and serrated leaves that twine their way along the ground. The forms on the field are "right-sized"; there is no sense of overcrowding. And while the ground is a rich red, the ivory, dark blue, turquoise, coral, and tan shades of the flowers and other designs mute and mellow the brightness. (At least, these are the colors as they appear to me in the dimmed light; I am not sure the photo captures the true colors.)  Interestingly, the border of the rug is more intricately patterned than its field. I could live with this carpet forever.

The gallery as a whole is devoted to the arts of the Mughals and other Muslim rulers in India from the 16th to the 19th centuries. There are many other objects I like a lot: a  watercolor painting dating from 1639 that shows  an elephant fight staged before Shah Jahan; an embroidered hanging in shades of pomegranate, gold, and dark green made in the 17th century for the English market (it was a gift to the Met from the V and A); and an exquisite 19th century octagonal jewelry casket made of nephrite inlaid with gold and inset with emeralds, rubies, sapphires, diamonds, and other gems. But fundamentally, my heart belongs to the carpet.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 349 - Charles Ray horse

Image
June 19, 2923  Gallery 917 holds the Philip Guston painting I wrote about earlier (day 341).  Gallery 918 is home to just one work: a huge (perhaps   16 feet long and   10 feet high) granite bas-relief by a contemporary American sculptor, Charles Ray, who was born in 1953. The bas-relief, sculpted in 2019, is entitled “Two Horses,” which are seen in full-body profile. But you have to look closely to see the second horse, whose head and neck are in much lower relief than the horse in the foreground, and whose torso is almost completely obscured. The main giveaway that more than one horse is depicted are the six hooves at the bottom of the image. The striations in the granite at the bottom of the relief suggest that the horses are fording a stream, with water  covering their lower legs. The sculptor has done a remarkable job of capturing the front horse’s bony legs, the musculature of its shoulder, the sinews of its neck, the feathery texture of its mane.   The caption notes that horses
Read more

Day 360 - The Wentworth room

Image
 May 18, 2024 When I enter this room (gallery 711), which was taken from a house in Portsmouth, New Hampshire that was built in 1695-1700 for John Wentworth and his wife, I'm immediately struck by how much grander it seems than the Ipswich room, in spirit if not in scale. (The Wentworth room appears to me to measure about 35 feet long and 20 feet wide.)  For one thing, the fireplace, set against the long wall, is framed by beautiful dark wood paneling. (Such paneling may have lined the other walls as well, but if so, it has disappeared.) The single placard presents only very basic information about the room, but it includes  a QR code, which I dutifully scan, and to my surprise, once I've joined the Met's wifi, the website opens and contains much more detail.   I have to remind myself that, as with other period rooms, the furnishings in this room didn't come from the Wentworth home. Instead, they reflect  Met curators' knowledge about furniture styles and the curato
Read more

Day 356 - Medieval sculpture

Image
 May 7, 2024 Gallery 520 is at the area behind the large choir screen in the Medieval Art galleries. (At Christmas, the front of that screen is the site of the "angel tree" and the Neapolitan creche, where I make an annual pilgrimage; the figures of peasants tending their flocks and coming to adore the Christ child never fail  to move me.)  The gallery contains tapesetries, a large coffer, and a 14th-century Italian column head showing Saint Veronica holding up her veil on which a rather ugly head of Christ appears. A display case holds a parchment from 1466-67, during the War of the Roses, that charts the genealogy of the kings of England.  Edward IV's claim to the throne is substantiated by the inclusion among his forebears of King David, Alexander the Great, King Arthur, and William the Conqueror.   Most of the gallery, however, is devoted to sculpture.  Dating from about 1325 to 1550, the statuary comes from all over Western Europe (France, Germany, the Low Countries,
Read more