Spotlight: Spanish Holbein Carpet

Look at the red border closely. Its white, green, black, blue and yellow shapes imitate Kufic, the angular Arabic script, and they frame a dark green field of octagons and diamonds in yellow, red, blue and violet. The carpet is 4.6 metres long, knotted in 15th-century Spain at about 20 knots to the square centimetre.

The weavers were Mudejars, Muslims working for Christian patrons in southeast Spain, probably at Alcaraz. They took the design from the Turkish carpets that Hans Holbein the Younger painted, hence the name, but tied it with the single-warp knot then peculiar to Spain. You find it in the Museum Collections Gallery, on loan from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which bought it in 1939. It was conserved in 2025, and this is its first showing since.

It is one carpet, so make it a stop on a collection visit. Entry is included with Museum admission, which is free for everyone on Wednesdays from 4 to 8pm.