Turkish Rugs: How do we date Early Karapinar Carpets?

Karapinar Tulip Rug from the Philadelphia Museum of Art

How do we date Early Karapinar Carpets?
Not long ago Wendel Swan sent me a picture of the Textile Museum Karapinar tulip long rug. It is a magnificent rug and a very early example of the type but the Textile Museum has it listed as 19th century. How then can the Textile Museum date this rug so late? I think I have it figured out. I don't agree but now I think I understand the rational.

Mae Beattie identified a group of unusual Kilims that she dated to the 17th century. I believe that Court Kilim from the Ulu Mosque in Divrigi is an example of that group. So if Charlie Ellis accepted Mae Beattie's attribution of 17th century and I am sure he would because I think he helped her with it, then you can understand how he dated the Karapinar Tulip Rug from the Philadelphia Museum of Art to the 18th to 19th century. So if Karapinar Tulip Rug from the Philadelphia Museum of Art is 18th to 19th century then you can understand how Ellis who had a great deal of input on such thing at the Textile Museum would date the Textile Museum Karapinar tulip long rug to the 19th century.

The problem is that a number of rugs are plausibly date dated much earlier such as to Turkish Rugs: Karapinar Long Rug C. 1600 and Turkish Rugs: Karapinar Long Rug from the Vakiflar Museum Circa 1600 - 1700. My thought is that the Ottoman took Egypt in 1517 so why not date the Court Kilim from the Ulu Mosque in Divrigi to circa 1500. After all it is made in the Egyptian manner. So if we date that one to 1500 then we can quiet plausibly date Turkish Rugs: Karapinar Long Rug C. 1600, Turkish Rugs: Karapinar Long Rug from the Vakiflar Museum Circa 1600 - 1700, Textile Museum Karapinar tulip long rug, Turkish Rugs: Karapinar Long Rug Fragment from the Wolf Collection, and Karapinar Yellow Ground Tulip Rug from Berdj Achdjian to circa 1600 and into the 17th century. So where do we put the Karapinar Tulip Rug from the Philadelphia Museum of Art? How about mid 16th century?

Ursula McCracken memorial - 2:00 to 4:00pm, May 10th at The Textile Museum

MCCRACKEN, URSULA NAYLOR ELAND

Published: April 2, 2008

McCRACKEN--Ursula Naylor Eland, 66, died at home in Baltimore, March 17. A Wellesley College graduate (BA 1963, cum laude, Wellesley Scholar), held two MAs from Johns Hopkins University. A career in arts and education: Albright Knox Gallery; Walters Art Museum and College of Notre Dame in Baltimore. For 18 years she was Director of the Textile Museum in Washington DC where she brought the Museum up to current standards in every area from collections management to financial management while diversifying the exhibitions and educational programs, and building local, national and international audiences and membership. She increased the endowment seven-fold to over $17 million. Survived by her husband, Edward; siblings: Timothy Eland of New York City, Jane Donahue of Wellesley, MA and Faith Shepard of New Canaan, CT. Family and friends will hold a gathering of remembrance from 2:00 to 4:00pm, May 10th at The Textile Museum in Washington. Ursula requested contributions to the American Pain Foundation, Suite 710, 201 N. Charles St. Baltimore, MD 21201 or the Textile Society of America, P.O. Box 193, Middletown, DE 19709.

Swan and Walker at the Textile Museum

Swan and Walker at the Textile Museum I made it to the Textile Museum RTAM to hear Wendel Swan and Daniel Walker. Wendel was brilliant. I was really impressed by the creative approach Wendel took to a Karapinar carpet fragment. Dan Walker did a nice job of talking about his collection of classical era fragments. The audience seemed notably surprised when Dan showed a copy of the "Goddess in Anatolia" and used it to relate to some of his fragments. Dan handled it well and made some good points. Walker talked a bit about small silk Kashan rugs and related them to a piece in his collection. His concept of a later silk Kashan rug with Jufti knotting was adventurous but he carried it off well. Both Wendel and I asked questions pointing to a Khorasan attribution for the fragments but Walker stood his ground. Dan and I tend to disagree on many of the attributions of classical carpets but it was easy to see the strong academic qualities that made Dan Walker so attractive to the TM when they drafted him. I think he is best thing to happen to the Textile Museum in years. Obviously the TM is lucky to have such a brilliant and dedicated director. Some of the pieces in the show were Harold Keshishian's but I will talk about them later.

Five Very Special Fragments at the TM

Five Very Special Fragments
After the RTAM at the Textile Museum Harold Keshishian and I ducked out quickly and I drove Harold to another engagement in Upper Northwest. As we drove Harold told me about the five pieces that he had in the program. These rugs were very special for a very unusual reason. All of them were presents to Harold from major dealers and collectors. It used to be a custom for top collectors and dealers to give gifts of important rugs and fragments to up and coming collectors and dealers. Fragments were especially prized by all the big collectors, guys like Joe McMullan, Hagop Kevorkian, Ralph Yohe, and Russ Pickering prized them. In fact the two big Indo-Persian fragments on the right were presents from Ralph Yohe, The square Indo-Persian fragment above and too the right of the other two was a gift of Magda Shapiro a top London dealer. (I was especially interested in this one since it had that orange that Ellis used as a marker for Herat.) The two smaller Mughal fragments were a present from Harry Bolsen who ran J.H. Dildarian, Inc. for 80 year old a mainstay of the Madison Avenue rug trade.
Harold is like family to me and I learn so much when we get together. The five fragments are great pieces but they mean a lot more when I know the story behind them.

L.A. Rug Expert Brian Morehouse weighes in on 18th Century Anatolian Turkmen

L.A. Rug Expert Brian Morehouse weighes in on 18th Century Anatolian Turkmen The level of discourse on Turkotek certainly has gone up a notch or two since Jim Allen started his 18th Century Anatolian Turkmen thread. Now L.A. Rug Expert Brian Morehouse has jumped into the discussion with both feet. Brian has come out with a variation of the old, Turkish Rugs are Armenian rugs, argument. Brian Morehouse wrote: "I cannot for the life of me see why anyone given current scholarship would still adhere to the Turkmen genesis for Anatolian Rugs. Do people really believe that Anatolian weaving traditions languished for thousands of years until the arrival of the Turkmen…..nonsense? Or that the Kurds or Armenians were not privy to the technology of pile weaving....nonsense! Clearly over a thousand years had passed from the time of the Greco-Romans and almost that long under Byzantine rule."

I was reading Kurt Erdmann's "700 years of Oriental Carpets" this afternoon and Erdmann made the point that there were Turkmen, Armenians, and Greeks. In fact he quoted Marco Polo in support of this. So as I read this Brian Morehouse's argument flashed through my mind and I realized that if we eliminate the Turkmen then all we have left are Greeks, Kurds, and Armenians. So were the Greeks weaving Brian's thousands of years of rug? If Greeks wove rugs why don't Greeks weave rugs. Are we to believe that Greeks wove for thousands of years and then fled the Turks and forgot. Nope, not likely in my book. So that leaves the Armenians and the Kurds. Now the Kurds are Eastern Anatolian. If Brian wants to attribute western and central Anatolian rugs to the Kurds then he is going to have to deal with the Turkotek Kurdish rug YO Michael Wendorf and his Kurdish heartland mandate.

So following the Morehouse argument that leaves the Armenians. I always suspected that some Central Anatolian rugs were Armenians but All of them? Keep tuned to Jim Allen's 18th Century Anatolian Turkmen thread for the latest in Internet rug scholarship.

Highest Prices Paid for Oriental Rugs

Rug Rag has a fun piece on the Highest Prices Paid for Oriental Rugs One of the rugs is a Chelaberd Kazak sold by Freeman's Auctioneers in PA at a hammer price of $341,625. A nice rug but not the type to typically bring over $10,000 a square foot. What then made this rug special?
It was from the estate of Robert Montgomery Scott. It had belonged to his mother Helen Hope Montgomery Scott who was the famous society beauty who inspired two major motion pictures. In one she was played by (The Philadelphia Story) Katherine Hepburn and in the other (High Society ) by Grace Kelly. And now you know the rest of the story as Paul Harvey says.

Tschebull Antique Carpets Going Out of Business

Tschebull Antique Carpets to Close
Raul "Mike" Tschebull's Tschebull Antique Carpets Collection, Darien, Connecticut will close and inventory will be sold at auction. More to come...