Prayer (niche) rug - containing six columns

This rug has one of the most original designs of the Museum’s six “Ladik” rugs with six column designs and borders of hexagonal cartouches.
The red, three-part prayer niche is supported by slender columns set on footings and arranged in a 1+2+2+1 formation. The ivory spandrels are filled with a palmette in the centre and, on each side, a serrated rosette surrounded by two interlinked arabesque-like curved leaves. The special feature of the rug is the horizontal band above the arch, the frieze, decorated by a stylized kufic inscription, spelling out the name of the Prophet Mohammed set into cartouches (there is a similar frieze on a late 17th century six column rug in the Black Church in Braşov).
In the main border, elongated hexagonal cartouches of alternating colour contain rosettes outlined in cloud bands. The inner border is a succession of rosettes alternating with tree-of-life motifs, and in the outer border, cloud bands alternate with white stars on a dark ground.
Ştefan Ionescu has dated rugs of similar decoration and colour in Transylvanian churches and museums to the late 17th and early 18th centuries.
At the 1914 Turkish Carpets from Transylvania exhibition in Budapest, the rug appeared under catalogue number 279, marked as belonging to the “National György Ráth Museum”.