An Oushak carpet.

Turkey, circa 1920.

17ft 9in  x  12ft 5in    :     545cm  x  480cm

Numerous carpets were woven in Western Turkey, mainly in the town of Oushak, under the supervision of Armenian and Greek merchants working for European firms with offices in Smyrna, for export to the Western markets.

The designs were enlarged in relation to architectural proportions, incorporating large wide borders, thus keeping a balance with the scale of a room. The colours employed were of lighter shades as demanded by their Western clients. The present carpet has a harmonious balance of the field and border colour tones of unusual combination of ivory cream and blue.