The Cerruti Collection includes three small Anatolian carpets of the late 16th century with the same kind of design, albeit differing considerably from one another, commonly known as “Tintoretto” rugs after the Venetian painter (fig. 1; see also N. Cat. A683 and A684). They are also known as Small Medallion Ushak, due to the presence of a small central medallion, and as double niche prayer rugs due to their small size and to the frequent presence in the field, as in this case, of a mosque lamp hanging from one of the inner cusps. 

This particular specimen is unusual and differs from the norm through the design of the field, where the profile of the double-niche motif is subtly delineated in dark blue on a red ground and appears to be one with the decoration of the spandrels, thus making the double-niche pattern almost imperceptible and instead emphasising the small green medallion in the centre, which contains a classic quatrefoil motif, typical of Ushak, with a small, white, octagonal star in the middle. The medallion is accompanied by two highly stylised elements indicative of the item’s function as a prayer rug, namely a sort of square diamond with pendants alluding to the mosque lamp in the upper section and a small, stylised vase in the lower. The border instead presents a classic design with stylised palmettes inside arches of leaves forming a sort of meander motif. This is very frequent in rugs of this kind and can also be found, for example, in the second Cerruti specimen (N. Cat. A683), albeit in that case with an unusual and perhaps even unique yellow ground, which adds luminosity to the composition as a whole. All in all, this is a small carpet of marked visual impact and great interest in virtue of its particular characteristics. It should finally be noted that, unlike practically all of the classic Ushak carpets, this specimen does not present what are known as “lazy lines”, that is, diagonal lines on the back generated by reversing wefts. While the real meaning of this technical characteristic of the weaving is not known, it is generally regarded as a guarantee of authenticity. Its absence here, together with the unusual nature of the design, could suggest a different place of production, still in Anatolia but rather in the area of Bergama, where small rugs of different kinds were woven as from the second half of the 15th century, if not earlier. 

Alberto Boralevi