As far as is known, carpets were not actually made in India until the time of the Empire of the Great Moguls in the sixteenth century, although before this they had been imported from Persia, particularly from Kirman, which is not surprising when it is considered that Kirman was the last large Persian city on the trade route to India.
When weaving began in India it was with Persian weavers reputedly imported by Akbar, with the consent of Shah Abbas of Persia, who was his contemporary. The weaving was centred on Agra and Lahore, and, as may be surmised, the designs had a distinctly Persian flavour about them. Later, while retaining some Persian influence, Indian designers developed their own ideas, the result being a pleasing contrast between the two schools of design.
Early examples from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries cannot be readily identified as coming from a particular place, and the general tendency is to call any Indian of that period either an Agra or Indo-Persian. There is, in London, however, one Indian carpet, fully documented and known to have been made in the Royal Factory at Lahore. It is in the possession of the Worshipful Company of Girdlers in the city of London, and it was presented to them by Robert Bell, Master of the Company, at the expiry of his second term of office in 1634.
The minutes of the Girdlers Company of 12 August 1634 read: ‘Also, at this Court, Mr. Robert Bell did present a very faire long Turkey Carpitt, with the Company’s Arms thereon, which he freely gave to the use of this Company as a remembrance of his love.’
The carpet, 24 ft x 7 ft 6 inch, was made to lay on the original Court Room table of the Girdlers Company, which was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666; the design incorporates the Coat of Arms of the Company, two panels bearing Robert Bell’s initials, and at each end of the field, Bell’s Coat of Arms.
Robert Bell was a prominent member of the East India Company from the time of its foundation in 1600, and a rather long entry is given in the minutes of this Company for 2 April 1634 to the carpet, which it states was made in Lahore. The reason for the entry is because there was a dispute about payment. It appears that the Company was charged with the cost of manufacture and endeavoured to recover the money from Bell. He stated that he had already settled the account personally. The dispute was never resolved, and later in the same year the directors of the East India Company apparently allowed the matter to drop. The interesting thing about this particular carpet is that here is a ‘Turkey Carpitt’, of Persian design and knotting, undoubtedly made in India. The reference to Turkey is understood when we realize that all Oriental carpets entering England at that time, no matter where they were made, were referred to as such.
Some rather heavy pile Indian carpets come on to the market as Mail’ carpets. It is known that in the last century prisoners, particularly at Agra and Jaipur, were given the task of making extremely tough carpets, and the story goes that good weavers were resentenced at the end of their term, on any pretext that could be found, in order to finish the job they were on.
Since those days, India has remained a carpet producing country, and even today some pieces of excellent quality are made there.
The sub-continent is now split of course, but for the purposes of this volume, the products of Pakistan and Kashmir will be discussed under the heading of India. The former country now makes very finely-knotted rugs, chemically washed, many of them with Turkoman designs and colours. Kashmir has been a producing country for many years, and in addition to the embroideries for which it is justly famous some exceedingly finely woven pieces have been made there.
The example shown here is in the possession of the author, and it was reputedly made about sixty years ago. Because of the fine knotting, it could only have been made by a child, as it is impossible to imagine such dexterity from adult fingers. Woven on silk warps, with a small amount of silk in the wool pile, the knotting is between fifty and fifty-two per inch each way. This makes about 2600 knots to the square inch, and it is undoubtedly one of the finest knotted examples ever seen. The design is a perfect reproduction, in miniature, of a sixteenth-century Isfahan carpet and, although measuring only 4 ft 3 inch X 1 ft 10 inch, it contains as many knots as an average Oriental carpet twenty times the size. In point of fact this carpet is a miniature reproduction in the real sense of the word, for it was what could best be termed a scaled-down reproduction, knot for knot, of an original.
An interesting sidelight is that this particular rug was exhibited by Messrs Perez, of London, at an exhibition of European and Oriental Carpets at the Royal Water Colour Society’s Galleries, London, in 1946. The rug was displayed in a glass cabinet with miniature furniture placed on it, the latter having been made by disabled ex-servicemen of the Star and Garter Home, Richmond, in aid of whom the exhibition had been promoted. The glass cabinet was not quite long enough for the rug to lie flat, and it was therefore curled over at one end. On visiting the exhibition, Her late Majesty Queen Mary suggested that a magnifying glass should be provided, as the knotting was so fine that it could not be seen properly with the naked eye.
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