USHAK CARPET

floor covering handwoven in the city of Usak (Ushak), Tur. By the 16th century the principal manufacture in Ottoman Turkey of large commercial carpets had been established at Usak, which produced for palace and mosque use and for export. By the 18th and early 19th centuries, this manufacture had come increasingly under European control. The carpets became coarser and rougher, with designs calculated to please European tastes, at the close of the 19th century. The quality had probably never been as fine as that of the court carpets, made nearer to the capital cities. The best-known pattern among the older carpets is a scheme of large, rounded medallions of two types, alternating upon a field of brick red or, occasionally, of dark blue. The medallions are in blues and black-brown, with yellow and white used sparingly. A second common pattern shows diagonal rows of eight-pointed star medallions alternating with diamonds. In the 18th and 19th centuries, a number of carpets with prayer-niche motifs in rows were made for mosque worship. Holbein rugs, Lotto carpets, and bird rugs have been attributed to Usak, as have several prayer-rug types, including the so-called Tintorettos.