Carpet with dragon and phoenix, approx. 15th–16th century

The wool carpet shown here was made between the 15th and 16th century in what is now Turkey. It shows the fight between dragon and phoenix in two overlapping images. The motif, which originated in China and symbolized happiness, contentment, and the empire, was applied and reinterpreted in various genres and materials in Islamic art from the 13th century onwards.

Dragon-phoenix carpet, color photography, unknown year, photographer: Georg Niedermeiser; source: Museum für Islamische Kunst der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin — Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Ident.No. I. 4, https://id.smb.museum/object/1523505, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Germany (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 EN), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/de/deed.en.