These are the three most important Caucasian rugs in the Cerruti Collection. The large carpet bears the classic and widelyused Avshan (Fig. 1) pattern derived from the stylistic motifs of the Persian court and constitutes a textbook example in terms of colour and design, with the characteristic border of Kufic motifs in white on a red ground. The typically long and narrow Akstafa prayer rug (Fig. 2) also presents a classic design with a small, rectangular mihrab or prayer niche in the upper part of the field and an apotropaic ram-horn border on a white ground. While both of these are from the area of Shirwan in the southeast of the Caucasus, the third, which presents a pattern of minute motifs in parallel rows on a yellow ground, was woven in a village in the more northern area of Kuba towards the border with Dagestan. 

Alberto Boralevi