Name of Object:

The Kevorkian Hyderabad Carpet

Location:

Doha, Qatar

Holding Museum:

Museum of Islamic Art (MIA)

About Museum of Islamic Art (MIA), Doha

Date of Object:

17th century

Museum Inventory Number:

CA.17.1997

Material(s) / Technique(s):

Wool, cotton; pile weave

Dimensions:

H: 1596cm, W: 325cm

Period / Dynasty:

Deccani sultanates

Provenance:

India, Hyderabad

Description:

This carpet is known as the “Kervorkian Hyderabad Carpet” due to the fact that it was owned by Kervorkian, who was a famous Islamic art dealer and collector. This wool and cotton pile-woven carpet is nearly sixteen metres long and might have been created for the palaces of the Deccani sultans who ruled in Hyderabad during the 17th century.
This carpet, which symbolizes the tradition of paradisical iconography in Islamic art, features a garden composition that includes geometric lozenges with a variety of vegetal motifs arranged in a mirrored composition. At the centre, a polylobed shape represents an abstracted fish pond decorated with multi-coloured fish. The rug presents a reach palette of colours (yellow, brown, blue and green) with a majority of vivid red, characteristic of that production.
The border, which recalls manuscripts illuminations of the same period, is also highly decorated with repeated polychromic arabesque cartouches and foliated motifs.
Carpet production in India during the Mughal period and the Deccan sultanate, especially during the 17th century, demonstrate the transfer of motifs and patterns from the cultural and commercial exchange with Iran, the Middle-East and Europe.

How date and origin were established:

This carpet has been dated based on stylistic comparisons with other known Mughal and Deccani carpets from the same period

How provenance was established:

This carpet has been stylistically attributed to Hyderabad, India based on comparisons with further examples

Selected bibliography:

Dimand, Maurice, The Kevorkian Foundation Collection of Rare and Magnificent Oriental Carpets: special loan exhibition, a guide and catalog, New York: Kevorkian Foundation, 1966: 23.
Walker, Daniel, Flowers Underfoot: Indian Carpets of the Mughal Era, New-York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2013: 122–23, 171–72, figs. 119–120 and cat. 33.
King, Donald, The Eastern Carpet in the Western World from the 15th to the 17th Century, London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1983: 48, 101 and no. 81.
Michell, George (ed.), Islamic Heritage of the Deccan, vol. 37.3 (June 1986), Mumbai: Marg: 16, 120 and 126.

Citation of this web page:

Mounia Chekhab-Abudaya "The Kevorkian Hyderabad Carpet" in Discover Islamic Art, Museum With No Frontiers, 2026.
https://islamicart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;DCA;qt;Mus31;4;en

Prepared by: Mounia Chekhab-Abudaya

MWNF Working Number: QT1_004