Carpet
Category
Carpets, rugs and mats
Date
circa 1550 - 1600
Materials
Wool
Measurements
358 cm (Width) x 190 cm (Depth)
Place of origin
Ushak
Order this imageCollection
Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire
NT 1129460
Summary
A woolen Ushak carpet, Usak, Western Turkey, circa 1550 - 1600. With knotted pile, with blue stars on a predominantly red ground, within a leaf border. Possibly one of three carpets [the others NT 1129800 and NT 1129446] at Hardwick mentioned in the 1601 inventory, which mentions carpets both for floors ('a foot turkie carpett') and for laying upon furniture, and which distinguishes between Oriental imports and British copies, or 'turkie worke'. Carpets of this type were depicted in portraits of English sitters from the second quarter of the 16th century. Bess of Hardwick's eldest son, Henry, travelled to Constantinople, or Istanbul, in 1589, and the 6th Earl of Shrewsbury was informed in 1585 when a ship laden with carpets arrived in London.
Provenance
By descent until, following the death of Edward William Spencer Cavendish, 10th Duke of Devonshire (1895 - 1950), Hardwick Hall and its contents were accepted by HM Treasury in part payment of death duties and transferred to the National Trust, in 1959.
References
Beattie, 1959: May H.Beattie, “Antique rugs at Hardwick Hall.” Oriental Art 5.22 (1959)., p. 55, Figure 4 McDowell, 1988: Joan Allgrove McDowell. “The textiles at Hardwick Hall.” Hali Magazine 39, 40 1988., p. 38 Levey, 1998: Santina M. Levey, An Elizabethan inheritance: the Hardwick Hall textiles. London: National Trust, 1998., p. 27, Figure 20 Rowell, Christopher, 'Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Carpets at Hardwick', in Hardwick Hall: A Great Old Castle of Romance, eds., David Adshead and David Taylor (2016), 350, Figure 339