LOTTO ARABESQUES
An interpretation of the design motif of Lotto rugs
Eberhart Herrmann

In the Lotto design the bird of the two worlds is placed vertically (fig. 3), corresponding to its imaginary journey through the patterned area of the inner field of the carpet, travelling from east to west, following the guiding ray of the vertical warp which marks the east-west direction of the coordinate system. The dragon-bird and the serpent-bird are turned on their axes through 90° and follow the horizontal or weft coordinate, marking the south-north direction for the dragon-bird (fig. 4) and the north-south direction for the serpent-bird (fig. 2).
The Lotto design is thus a symbol of life and death, of creating and perishing, in the greater cosmic circle. In the mystical-mythical imagery of the Orient the soul is carried by fantastic birds with supernatural powers. ...

Bijapur, on the plateau of the Deccan, is a town off the main roads some five hundred kilometres south-east of Bombay. Not long ago, under the British, as a provincial town in the Bombay Presidency, it had thirty thousand inhabitants. Since then, the population has increased to two hundred thousand, yet a rural character has been preserved with beautifully decorated horsecabs trotting along the roads. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Bijapur was the capital of a large kingdom, temporarily including Goa. It was ruled by the Adilshahis, a Shiite dynasty of Turkish descent. Bijapur was a centre of the arts and, even today, miniature paintings from the Adilshahi courts are regarded as important contributions to the Deccani painting school. In 1686, it was seized by Aurangzeb and, under varying rules, finally sank into oblivion. ...

The possibility that a whole corpus of de-signs found on oriental carpets has roots going back some thousands of years is thrilling and exciting. To find analogies in the motifs from different works of art is like seeing a hidden tradition underlying the religious and cultural backgrounds of peoples, sometimes separated by considerable time and space. James Opie (Tribal Rugs)1 emphasises the importance of the so-called Luristan-Bronzes from the first millennium BC in the development of many carpet motifs. He also states that these ancient roots are best preserved in the weavings of Luristan owing to the remoteness of their place of origin, and he traces back the source of a large number of motifs to the 'animal-head column', which might be related to the famous master-of-animals bronzes. ...