Provenance:
Peter Pap Oriental Rugs, San Francisco

Note:
The term 'Lotto rug' (or 'Lotto carpet') designates a group of hand-woven Turkish rugs produced along the Aegean coast of Anatolia in the 16th and 17th centuries—a golden age of carpet design and production. Although not the first nor the last artist to depict such rugs, their name was coined by their common appearance within scenes painted by the Italian artist Lorenzo Lotto (1480-1556/7). Characterized by complex arabesque patterns in yellow, orange and cream color schemes over a red ground, these carpets were primarily produced for the European market; they were smaller and slightly differed in style to those contemporaneously produced for use within the Ottoman Empire.

Due to the rarity of surviving examples, proof of Lotto rugs' presence and popularity in history almost solely exists through its vast representation in paintings of this period. Lotto rugs are considered historically unique for the fact that they appeared rather suddenly (the first painting that shows a Lotto rug dates to 1516, though it is believed that the design is older) and just as quickly disappeared near the end of the following century.