After an auction-starved spring, hats off to Edward Gibbs, Benedict Carter and the Islamic Department at Sotheby’s London for persevering with their postponed Arts of the Islamic World & India including Fine Rugs & Carpets sale, originally planned for April And what a handsome sale it is.
The sale spans a thousand years of art. It ranges from monumental 15th-century Andalusian marble columns (Lot ??, est £???)to a Fatimid woodcarving of hares from 12th-century Egypt (Lot 97, £30,000–50,000 – the wood itself carbon-dated to 500 years earlier). Rarities include these Golden Horde silver-gilt horse fittings from 14th-century Persia (Lot 107, 33 pieces, est £20,000–30,000), similar examples of which can be found in the Hermitage in St Petersburg.
Highlights for Turkish collectors will be some wonderful Ottoman textiles from the collection of H Peter Stern, the American collector and Indiaphile who died, aged 90, in 2018. An avid traveller and collector, Stern founded the Storm King Art Center in New York State, described in his New York Times obituary as ‘one of the most significant sculpture gardens in the world’. He loved to display his gorgeous Ottoman and Italian Ottomanesque voided silk panels like paintings, just as they are hung at Sotheby's today (above).
Among them is this early-17th-century voided silk yastik (Lot 168, £10–15,000), woven in Bursa or Istanbul.
The impact of the shimmering voided silk velvet is extraordinary. In the 16th century, this fabric (çatma in Turkish) was made both in Italy and Turkey and it is often hard to tell which is which. Lot 170 (second from left, est £10,000–15,000 is Italian; Lot 171 (far right, £15,000–25,000), is Turkish.
Lot 216 (est £10,000–15,000), entitled Cameria, or Mihrimah Sultan (1522–78), daughter of Süleyman the Magnificent, is one several versions of a lost Titian portrait. Others are in the Pera Museum, the Courtauld Institute and Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire.
One of the stars of the sale is this handsome, rare ceramic pitcher (Lot 98, est £120,000–160,000), a foot high, which belongs to a group known as the Gurgan Hoard. Found in the 1940s, the hoard was buried in large jars in a pit in Gurgan, close to the Caspian Sea in northwestern Iran – one theory, according to the Turkish art historian Oya Pancaroğlu, is that a merchant had hidden the wares for safekeeping on the eve of the Mongol invasion, hence the pitcher’s exceptionally good condition.
Fired in Kashan c1200–20, the centre for such production, the vivid, interlocking designs of stylised birds, palmettes, foliate motifs and calligraphy are painted in striking turquoise on a black ground which covered the newly fashionable white fritware. Age has given the colours an iridescent quality.The provenance goes back to early-20th-century Alexandria, where it belonged to the Armenian tobacco trader Jacques Matossian.
At the other end of the time scale is a 19th-century French version of Chinese-inspired Iznik pottery (Lot 227, est £7,000–10,000). This scalloped dish with its vivid vine leaves and grapes is by Théodore Deck (1823–91), an eclectic artist who was equally adept at voguish Japonisme. Other European interpretations of Iznik are the two outsize 'Iznik' vases in the main picture, above – the tall slim vase on the right (Lot 225, est £8,000–12,000) and the two-handled vase on the left (Lot 226, est £10,000–15,000) – are both 19th-century Italian Cantagalli ware.
Découpage is one of the Ottoman palace's more eccentric arts. This 16th-century garden scene (Lot 55, est £6,000–8,000), which looks at first glance like a painting, is in fact made up of thousands of pieces of cut paper. It measures 21.5 x 12cm. (For more on this art form, see Tim Stanley's review of Kat'i: Cut Paper Works and Artists in the Ottoman World, by Filiz Çağman in Cornucopia 53.)
A love of niches runs through Islamic art. There are 70 carpets and rugs in the Sotheby's sale, many from prominent collections, but with its arcade of niches and curled vine borders, this Oushak (Uşak) fragment, dated to the second half of the 17th or early 18th century, has a particular historical fascination (Lot 253, est £15,000–25,000). It belongs to a small group of carpet fragments said to have come from the Ulu Cami in Bursa. Other examples are the David Collection in Copenhagen, the Linden-Museum in Stuttgart, the Marshall and Marilyn R. Wolf collection and the Textile Museum in Washington DC.
Far from being just a virtual event, the Arts of the Islamic World & India Sale will include a feast of an exhibition. Greeting visitors at the entrance is another exquisite textile from the H Peter Stern Collection, a 17th-century Indian tent panel from the Mughal court that recalls the Emperor Jahangir's passion for gardens (Lot 143, est £25,000–40,000).
Viewing is strictly by appointment until Tuesday evening – contact chiara.denicolais@sothebys.com. The live auction starts at 10.30am London-time on Wednesday morning, June 10 (12.30 Turkish time). For the catalogue and details of how to bid, click here (or email enquiries@sothebys.com).
Bonhams will hold its Islamic and Indian Art Sale on Thursday, June 11. A charming change of mood is provided by Beach Café, by one of Istanbul’s best-loved 20th-century Turkish artists, Fikret Mualla (1903–67), who lived the last decades of his life in solitary self-imposed exile in the garrets of Paris (Lot 137, est £6,000–8,000).
The one to watch in the Christie’s Art of the Islamic and Indian Worlds Including Oriental Rugs and Carpets sale (now rescheduled for June 25) is this double portrait of Sultan Mehmed II with a Young Dignitary from the workshop of Gentile Bellini, c1429–1507 (Lot 118, est £400,000–600,000) – one of the very rare surviving contemporary or near-contemporary portraits of Mehmed the Conqueror (on the right), whom the artist knew well. The provenance for this enigmatic work goes back to Basel connoisseur Christian von Mechel (1737–1817). The family who bought it from the Swiss engraver-turned-art dealer would hold onto the painting for two centuries. It almost doubled its high estimate in an Old Master & British Paintings Evening Sale at Sotheby's on July 8, 2015, fetching a cool £965,000.