Vintage Cuenca Rug
The court workshop called ‘Real Fabrica de Tapices’ has been active in Madrid since the 17th Century, supplying handmade carpets woven with Turkish (symmetrical) knots to both the court as well as for export. Throughout the 20th century their carpets were either woven with French Savonnerie patterns or, as in this case, with designs taken from the Spanish Renaissance weaving tradition. These carpets are known in the trade with the term of ‘Cuenca’, which is the city in southern Spain where they were originally woven in the 15th-17th centuries.
Here the pattern is characterised by an infinite repeat of the so-called ‘Lotto’ arabesque, a motif which first appeared on 16th Century Turkish carpets of a type often depicted in paintings of the Italian Renaissance artist Lorenzo Lotto.