hundred years old pearl carpet for Mahomet

[CLICLASP]

Hello PG members,

has anyone seen this carpet on auction mid-march.
Finally sold up to 5.5 Millions dollards in Doha by Sotheby's.
said to have 2 millions natural Gulf pearls, first exhibited in 1902.
can someone put a link to an american newspaper issue about it ?
cannot find any on my side.

Enjoy the picture (credit Photo : Karim Jaafar/AFP)

 

[Valeria101]

Bloomberg News (post-sale)

Sotheby's had quite a lengthy release before the auction. Links on an older thread HERE.

Aside their news bites, newspapers reported a correction of the estimate - for what that sort of claim is worth.

PS: NYT, May 5, 1917 (!) - see the bottom half of the last column. I believe the book and witness account was a source for Sotheby's as well. The original description sounds different though. Nice to have these old texts out there!

 

[MistofCassiopeia]

This must be the world's heaviest carpet!

 

[knotty panda]

Look at that! Nothing but pearls! And every one had to be drilled and stitched. A lifetime of work. $5.5M sounds like a bargain.

 

[J Marcus]

At $5,485,000 for an historic carpet made of approx. 2,000,000 pearls--all natural, drilled and sewn into a carpet...... Let's see--that comes out to just about $2.73 each. Yes, quite a bargain at that.

 

[Ash]

This one of my favorite pieces of history. Sigh....


Here is a link with extremely great detail of the carpet you can see the glass beads and other gemstones used even where a couple pearls have "fallen off" the carpet!

Hmm I wonder..

cheers
Ash