Ushak Medallion Carpet on White Ground
Not on view
Medallion Ushak carpets usually have a red or blue field decorated with a floral trellis or leaf tendrils, central medallions, and a border containing palmettes on a floral and leaf scroll, and pseudo-kufic characters. In this example (partially restored), a typical white-ground field pattern is combined with the Medallion Ushak to form a new category of Ottoman carpets. Its triple spots-and-wavy double stripe pattern, called çintamani, appears frequently in Ottoman art from the sixteenth century on tiles, paintings, book bindings, and particularly on textiles and garments. Unlike other white-ground categories, this field pattern never appears in European paintings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.