Turkish Prayer 1852

Dimensions: 3' 2" x 4' 8"

Date of Manufacture: 1st Quarter of the 1900s

Place of Origin: Turkey (Anatolia)

Material: Wool pile on a wool foundation with vegetable dyes

Condition: Wear consistent with age and use

SKU: 1852

This exquisite antique Anatolian village prayer rug from the early 20th century features a refined Tree of Life composition — one of the most symbolically resonant and visually beautiful formats in the prayer rug tradition. The ivory field carries the ascending form of the sacred tree with great delicacy, rendered in red, gray, blue, green, and navy — each color achieved through natural vegetable dyes that have mellowed over a century into a palette of nuanced, organic beauty.

The Tree of Life in Islamic art represents the eternal connection between earth and heaven, between the human and the divine — a meaning that gives the prayer rug a spiritual depth beyond the purely devotional. The deep indigo-toned border, with its geometric accents, frames the composition with quiet authority. The Anatolian prayer rug tradition is one of the most ancient and spiritually resonant in the entire textile world. The mihrab — the arched niche that orients the rug toward Mecca — gives these rugs their distinctive directional quality and their connection to the devotional life of Islam. Village prayer rugs of the 19th and early 20th century are among the most personal and expressive textiles ever made, each a unique expression of the individual weaver's artistic sensibility within a form of deep religious significance.