Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries the majority of the large hand-woven Axminster carpets were designed around prominent central medallions, often influenced by French designs and in particular those of the Royal Savonnerie workshops. While the medallion design was most prevalent, in the early nineteenth century Regency England, a new style of carpet design grew in popularity taking inspiration from Asian and Islamic artistic traditions. The taste for such carpets is best illustrated by the three Axminsters commissioned by the Prince Regent for the Brighton Pavilion between 1817 and 1820 which took inspiration from Chinese motifs (Bertram Jacobs, Axminster Carpets (Hand-made): 1755-1957, Brighton, 1970, p.55, pls.16 and 17)
Descending from this tradition, carpets with an overall design were occasionally woven and within this group are a small number of carpets which took their inspiration from Persian carpets. The field and border design of the present lot is clearly reminiscent of the 17th century Safavid Persian carpets with its colourful take on the classic ‘in and out’ palmette arrangement. A comparable example with similarly free drawing but on a red ground was sold in these Rooms, 2 November 2016, lot 154 and was formerly housed in the Drawing Room at Hanbury Hall, Worcestershire. A further example in a Europeanised palette on an apricot ground reminiscent of the present lot, although with less expressive drawing, was sold at Sotheby’s, New York, 10 April 2008, lot 208 (see HALI, no.123, 2002, p.113), and was reputedly housed in Somerhill House, Kent.
Like the Hanbury Hall example, carpets of similar design were woven in a large scale, and were favoured in grand stately homes. A carpet formerly in The Chanter’s House, Ottery St. Mary, Devon with a Persianate lattice design sold in Sotheby’s Olympia, The Chanter’s House Sale: The Property of Lord Coleridge and a Coleridge family trust, together with the Property of Lord and Lady Norton removed from Fillongley Hall, Warwickshire, 24 October 2006, lot 50. A further example of the group was commissioned by Richard Hall Clarke for the drawing room of Bridwell House, Uffculme, Devon and sold in these Rooms, 11 June 1992, lot 134. An Axminster carpet from the collection of the Duke of Devonshire with an overall arrangement, but drawing on classical Smyrna designs from Western Anatolia, is published by Sarah B. Sherrill, Carpets and Rugs of Europe and America, New York, 1996, pl.218, p.203.