Purchased on behalf of the Museum from Edgar and Alice Whitaker, executors for the Istanbul estate of William Henry Wrench (1836-96), British Consul to Ottoman Turkey. Caspar Purdon Clarke, then Director of the Art Museum at South Kensington, travelled to Istanbul to negotiate a bulk purchase from Wrench's well-known art collection. He singled out this carpet in his correspondence, noting that "the Ispahan carpet [...] was well known to amateurs, and Mr Wrench had refused £300 for it, indeed all offers to purchase". He noted that Wrench had purchased the carpet ten years previously for £85. In the printed catalogue of the Wrench sale, the carpet was described as an "Ispahan portière" [door curtain]. Indeed the carpet may be seen hanging on an interior wall (presumably covering a doorway) of Wrench's home in Istanbul, in an archive photograph captioned "Constantinople. The Wrench Collection at Pera. Room showing Persian art objects" (V&A Archives). A second carpet (V&A 358-1897) may be seen lying on the floor in the same photograph.