Oriental carpets in Renaissance painting

Carpets of Middle-Eastern origin, either from Anatolia, Persia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, the Levant, the Mamluk state of Egypt or Northern Africa, were used as decorative features in Western European paintings from the 14th century onwards. More depictions of Oriental carpets in Renaissance painting survive than actual carpets produced before the 17th century, though the number of these known has increased in recent decades. Therefore, comparative art-historical research has from its onset in the late 19th century relied on carpets represented in datable European paintings.

Activities of scientists and collectors beginning in the late 19th century have substantially increased the corpus of surviving Oriental carpets, allowing for more detailed comparison of existing carpets with their painted counterparts. Western comparative research resulted in an ever more detailed cultural history of the Oriental art of carpet weaving. This has in turn renewed and inspired the scientific interest in their countries of origin. Comparative research based on Renaissance paintings and carpets preserved in museums and collections continues to contribute to the expanding body of art historical and cultural knowledge.

The tradition of precise realism among Western painters of the late 15th and 16th century provides pictorial material which is often detailed enough to justify conclusions about even minute details of the painted carpet. The carpets are treated with exceptional care in the rendering of colors, patterns, and details of form and design: The painted texture of a carpet depicted in Petrus Christus's "Virgin and Child", the drawing of the individual patterns and motifs, and the way the pile opens where the carpet is folded over the steps, all suggest that the depicted textile is a pile-woven carpet.

Visually, the carpets serve to draw attention either to an important person, or to highlight a location where significant action is going on. In parallel with the development of Renaissance painting, initially mainly Christian saints and religious scenes are set out on the carpets. Later on, the carpets were integrated into secular contexts, but always served to represent the idea of opulence, exoticism, luxury, wealth, or status. First, their use was reserved for the most powerful and most wealthy, for royalty and nobility. Later on, as more people gained sufficient wealth to afford goods of luxury, Oriental carpets appeared on the portraits of merchants and wealthy burghers. During the late 17th and 18th century, the interest in depicting carpets declined. In parallel, the paintings pay less attention to detail.

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