LACMA’s Coronation carpet received its name because it was used at the 1902 coronation of the United Kingdom’s Edward VII, son of Queen Victoria. Set before the king’s throne in Westminster Abbey, the carpet was also prominently featured in Edwin Austin Abbey’s painting of the event. The carpet was selected for the coronation ceremonies by the Duveen brothers, art dealers who were commissioned to provide tapestries and rugs for the event, which they borrowed from prominent collections. Shortly after the coronation, the carpet was acquired by American collector and self-made millionaire Marsden J. Perry. It subsequently belonged to two other American tycoons: Clarence Mackay, followed by J. Paul Getty, who donated it to LACMA in 1949.
As is typical of the design structure of such sixteenth-century Persian carpets, each quarter repeats exactly. The carpet is generically classified as a medallion carpet with flora and fauna, although its decoration more specifically suggests a paradisiacal garden with an abundance of trees and animals. Flowing water is indicated by the smaller blue medallions, which are reminiscent of linked pools. What clearly makes this an unearthly setting are the dragons, phoenixes, and qilins (creatures borrowed from Chinese mythology), and especially the winged celestial beings, or houris, in each of the quarter medallions.
Like the Ardabil Carpet (53.50.2https://collections.lacma.org/node/230372">53.50.2>), the Coronation carpet was given to LACMA by Getty. It also shares other features with that more famous carpet: although it is undated, it was likely made in the second quarter of the sixteenth century, and it too had a mate, of which a small fragment survives in the Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin.
