We`ve found items that might interest you

The supply of Classical fragments has dwindled in the last years,but Christies London still promotes them.A point in case was the Vase fragment sold on 2.10.2012.

1-Christies Lot 81

It had previously been sold by Rippon Boswell in May 2006(Lot 009)for 2900 euro,but some  years before,on the 4th of November 2003,went for 3600 euro at Nagels in Stuttgart.

2-Nagels

Christies cataloguer refers en passant to the fragment now in the Lyons Textile Museum

3-Lyons Musee des Tissus

Both pieces share a three-plane design,the apparent stiffening in the border of the Lyons piece is attributed to its later date.Friedrich Spuhler divided the two types into"Swinging"(early)and "rigid"(late)styles.The Christies fragment has an intertwined border more associated with earlier models,the supreme example being the carpet(or carpets)scattered about the world,which so entranced Frau Klose

4-Christies 25.4.2002-Lot 76

The Christies fragment has a two band plaiting,that from 2002 a complex and elegant three banded intertwining.More fragments from the same carpet(s)can be seen in the V&A,the Louvre,Boston,the Hermitage,et al.Strapwork borders with thick plaiting are uncommon amongst the Vase group,which tends to feature narrow borders,or entwined arabesques.

Returning to the 2012 example,another bit of the same carpet was sold at Sothebys in 1993, ex-collection Dr Andre Ungar

5-Sothebys 28.4.1993-Lot 63

The Christies fragment was first published in 1908,in a brochure which served as a piece of proto-advertorial for Bernheimer`s in Munich

6-Monatshefte XXII,1908

This is evidently the other end of the carpet,which must have been in complete condition at the time.

However,the two carpets may have formed a pair.But it is unlikely that the Bernheimer piece would have thus lain dormant for the last hundred years.

The strapwork border is a borrowing from the group of large Medallion Carpets from North West Persia,best illustrated by the ex-Baron von Tucher example now in the Textile Museum

7-Myers Collection,Textile Museum

After its turbulent ride through the auction world,this seminal Vase Carpet fragment sold for a well-deserved 3500 pounds.