PHILADELPHIA — A palace-size Persian serapi rug from the late Nineteenth Century flew to the top of Material Culture’s October 24 sale of the Dardashti collection, achieving $30,720, including buyer’s premium. With 12 poetic calligraphy inscriptions running along both sides of its interior field and another inscription at the apex, which reads “By Order of Sheikh Janaghi,” the rug, won by an American collector who was bidding online, measured 14 feet 10 inches by 25 feet and weighed 190 pounds.

There were 240 lots offered in the sale and only eight passed. Total sales were $1,032,500. Iranian Yadid Dardashti (b 1946), one of the top wholesale Oriental rug dealers in the United Sates and located in New York City, emigrated to the United States in 1975. He recently retired and Material Culture was selected to auction his collection. More about this sale will be discussed in an upcoming issue.