4 Tuduk Transylvania Rug Copies

 I received a FaceBook Chat from  Stefano Ionescu a knowledgeable person from  Rome Italy who has a interest in Transylvanian rugs.

Hi Barry, Every time i google 'Tra sylvanian' rugs I get your page But this is a Tuduk. Here are some other brothers, all copied after the wonderful Budapest rug. Is it possible for you:
a. to specify that this is a fake
b: to use another photo, possibly in the right way (palmette pointing up).

Stefano is well known and respected in the field of  Transylvanian rugs. He has two books that I know of"

The Lutheran Churches of Transylvania and their Rugs: Black Church and the Brasov area2005
by Stefano Ionescu 
Tappetti Anatolici Dalla Transilvania Sec. XVI-XVII [Anatolian Carpets from Transylvania 16th-17th Centuries]2005
by Stefano Ionescu and Alberto Boralevi.

15th century Persian Rug Shiraz?

This rug was from the Chihil Sutun kiosk in Isfahan. It was thought to be a Para-Mamluk rug from Damascus. Then Jon Thompson wrote "Late Mamluk Carpets: Some New Observations" in "The Arts of the Mamluks in Egypt and Syria: Evolution and Impact", edited by Doris Behrens-Abouseif.

15th century Persian Rug

I was fully prepared to disregard what Thompson had to say about these but he makes some very compelling points. I am not saying this particular rug but certainly this type is the precursor of the Damascus Compartment/Checkerboard/Chess Board Rug that the legendary Rug Expert Charles Grant Ellis termed Para-Mamluk,
But more than that I see this as a nice Persian Rug from the 15th century. where was this rug made. The easy answer is Tabriz but this rug is not woven with an Asymmetric knot. So if not Tabriz fo we then go to Isfahan province to Kashan or maybe some where in Arak? Why not Shiraz. We know there was court workshop production at that time. Some people might argue why not Kashan there were court workshops there. We would then have to remind them that yes but not until 200 years after this piece. So Shiraz where an Asymmetric open left rug would not be out of place is as lucky as any. Let me also remind you that Shiraz traded with the Levant both by the sea route and the caravan route across Iraq.

Raleigh Durham area NC Oriental Rug Cleaning

Scot Neal and his son Timmy are prominent and well known Oriental Rug Cleaneres, experts and are considered the "Moth" experts in the Carolina's.
Scot Neal and his son Timmy are associates of the Academy of Oriental Rugs. Scot was chosen by the Senior Fellows of the Academy in recognition of superior skill and knowledge as well as the broad respect that he commands in the industry. Timmy Neal was recognized at the Academy because even at 6 years old he showed a better grasp of Oriental Rugs then many cleaners 30 or more years older.

Rug Resolutions Oriental Rug Cleaning

Scot Neal

919-744-8620

Raleigh, NC

Http://www.rugresolutionsrugcleaning.com

Persian Rugs in the Levant circa 1444

From Charles Grant Ellis to Jon Thompson the understanding of rugs in the Levant is terribly muddled, Ellis with his theory of Para Mamluk rugs on up to Jon Thompson's theory of Tapedi Damascheni I find it an unintelligable mess. But no doubt part of that is I am not as smart as Ellis or Thompson. But if there is my one saving grace it is that I read a little more history then it would seem they did.

Jacques Coeur

While reading Levant Trade in the Middle Ages (Princeton Legacy Library Paperback – July 14, 2014) by Eliyahu Ashtor (Strauss)  there is a reference (Page 347-8) to the French merchant prince Jacques Coeur importing Persian Carpets from the Moslem Levant (Damascus) in 1444. What makes this important is that the citation is Thomas Basin,  (born 1412, Caudebec, France—died Dec. 3, 1491, Utrecht ) a contemporary of Jacques Coeur, Basin the bishop of Lisieux and Royal Counselor of his king Charles VII of France was in a position to have immediate and personal knowledge of where Coeur traded and for what. So would't it be wonderful if we could find a picture of one of Coeur's rugs. But that would be rather unlikely wouldn't it. 

Imagine my delight when I found Fra Carnavale's Jacques Coeur’s Annunciation , 1448, Munich. on Turkotek. 

 Detail of Jacques Coeur's Persian Rug

Fra Carnavale's Jacques Coeur’s Annunciation , 1448, Munich

There was a fun and wide ranging discussion on Turkotek where Filiberto Boncompagni first suggested that it might be a "European Renaissance textiles" and then when that did not seem to work he offered: "Could they be Spanish (Moorish) textiles? :confused:"

Pierre Galafassi who seems to be the one eyed man in the group speculated on: "Al Andalus silk brocade" and "Indian Peacocks" until he did mention "Il-khanid miniature below shows a peacock-feather motif ".
I guess that they never paid attention to the old adage that when you hear hoof-beats look for horses, not zebras. (Hmmm! was that Price who said that?)

This is Macée Coeur nee de Léodepart wife of Jacques. Please compare her to the woman in the Annunciation painting. I believe that they are the same woman. 

This is Jacques Coeur's home in Bourges.

This is from that home which has elaborate carvings, I want to dedicate this to the great guys at Turkotek for finding that picture even if they never knew what they had,

Charles Grant Ellis of Kingston, New York

Charles Grant Ellis was one of the top experts of Oriental Rugs of the Twentieth Century. He is remembered for his knowledge and his books but there was more to Charlie Ellis or "Uncle Charlie" as he was known in his later years. I hope a few pictures will gave a greater look into the man.
by the way Ellis was a connoisseur, a collector, and the expert but he was not a dealer which made him very unusual.

Ellis was exceptional for his encyclopedic knowledge of rugs and also the depth and focus he had in looking at rugs. Many of the so-called rug experts know their inventory and look at the pictures in books and magazines but Charlie Ellis really looked at the rugs.

Charlie Ellis lived in Kingston New York. Kingston is a prosperous town on the Hudson river about 90 miles north of New York City and 60 miles south of Albany.

Hajji Meeting 1965. from www.hajjibaba.org Ellis center left with the bow tie.    

Despite the distance he was a regularly attending member of the Hajji Baba Club in New York.

Ellis grew up with Oriental Rugs. I remember lunch with Carol Bier at the Ritz Carlton on Massachusetts Ave near the old Textile Museum in Washington DC. She was reminiscing on how Charlie Ellis got started in rugs. Charlie's mother asked him to pick up some rugs that were in a shop for cleaning. It was the first time he ever really looked at them and he decided that he wanted to know what they were.
Ellis created a substantial collection over his lifetime. see last image for one of his best.

Ellis was best known for his writing on Classical Carpets but his own taste was eclectic cutting across the broad gamut of hand woven Oriental Rugs.

Besides the Ellis home in Kingston the old Textile Museum in Washington DC was almost like a second home. Charlie was a research associate of the TM and some of his greatest work was in association with the Museum.

That work includes Early Caucasian Rugs (Ellis, Charles Grant. Early Caucasian Rugs. Washington DC: The Textile Museum, 1975.) It is a book that is my favorite look at Caucasian Dragon Rugs. It stands tall even 40 years later.  Most people who read rug literature skim the pictures and read the captions. Some hardy souls actually read the text but with Ellis the gems are hidden in the foot notes. If you do not digest the footnotes you will never really get Ellis.

Besides the TM another favorite was the Cosmos Club one of Washington DC elite dining clubs.

The club can be a little stodgy but stories are told that he lightened it up at times when he took young and bodacious fans of his work to lunch. In addition to his fans Ellis had close association with overt field agents of the CIA but he was far too much the gentleman to involve himself with spying and country toppling.

One of the best of the Charles Grant Ellis Collection was his Para-Mamluk sometimes called The Tapedi Damascheni. Why they would append the appellation Tapedi Damascheni to this rug leaves me wondering.

Baron Heinrich von Tucher Compartment Carpet

Baron Heinrich von Tucher Compartment Carpet 

I am working a theory that the clearer and better articulated the border the older the rug. This one has a border that is much better than most which points to it being older than most.

What I mean to do is lay out a progression from 15th century Persian rugs into the so-called Damascus Checkerboard/Chessboard/Compartment Rugs that were most likely made up until the mid seventeen hundreds. What I am thinking is that a particular type of rug developed a following. Meaning that there was a market for a type. That from that Progenitor this type evolved. Actually I am torn between Evolution and Degeneration because these rugs are a clumsy copy of the 15th century Persian progenitor type. That each piece in this chain was a little further from the progenitor and that we see a steady degeneration of form. 

Borders are crucial because the 15th century progenitor had what John Thompson called Mitered corners. The mitered corners can only produced through the use of a supervised production of an artists design most likely through the use of a cartoon. Then the cartoon is gone and the rugs are achieved through copying. This is where we get to the question of Evolution or degeneration. What  see is that the copies get sloppier and sloppier as hey veer away from the earlier rugs. I don't like the word evolution in this case because the rugs never get better they only get worse which is why I prefer the term Degeneration to describe this. So if I am right in this limited scenario the beter the rug holds to the design the earlier it must be in the approximately 200 years that hese rugs were made. 

Baron Heinrich von Tucher of Nuremburg was the Bavarian Ambassador to Vienna at the onset of World War I. He was a strong advocate for Anschluss (Strong Union) between Germany and Austria.

Rippon Boswell & Co., International Auctioneers;
Antique Rugs & Textiles; Lot 101A

Lot: 101A
The von Tucher Chessboard Carpet The exact provenance of ‘chessboard’ or ‘compartment’ carpets is still a matter of speculation. In the past, it was considered certain that they originated from the workshops of Damascus, Syria, which was under Ottoman rule at the time they were made; more recently, a possible provenance in Egyptian workshops located in Cairo has been contemplated. This six-compartment ‘chessboard’ carpet formerly belonged to the collection of Baron Heinrich von Tucher of Nuremberg. His collection was sold by the Berlin auctioneers Paul Cassirer and Hugo Helbing in 1925. Three comparative pieces in the Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris, illustrate the differences that exist within the group. The von Tucher ‘chessboard’ carpet is related to the example pictured on page 51 of the exhibition catalogue, "Tapis, présent de l'Orient à l'Occident". An important museum-quality collector’s item with an outstandingly well drawn design. – The sides are not original and the lateral guard stripes are missing. Both ends have been expertly restored. Low pile.
Origin: Syria or Egypt
Dimensions: ca. 197 x 133 cm
Age: ca. 1600
Estimate: 49,000.00 €

Literature: INSTITUT DU MONDE ARABE (publ.), Tapis, présent de l'Orient à l'Occident. Paris 1989, pp. 48 - 53 *** VÖLKER, ANGELA, Die orientalischen Knüpfteppiche im MAK (catalogue of the Austrian Museum of Applied Art, Vienna). Vienna, Cologne & Weimar 2001, no. 11

Published: CASSIRER, PAUL & HELBING, HUGO, Die Sammlung Heinrich Freiherr von Tucher. Auction of 8th December 1925, lot 23
http://www.rippon-boswell-wiesbaden.de/admin/modules/auctions/content/auction_popup.php?lot=26620

Mak Chessboard, The Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna

The Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna (MAK)
Chessboard’ or ‘Compartment’ Carpet, Syria or Southeast Anatolia, 16th century, 196 x 140 cm
© MAK/Georg Mayer
http://www.hali.com/news/mak-vienna-reopens-permanent-carpet-gallery/

The Baillet LaTour Square Mamluk Carpet

The Baillet LaTour Square Mamluk Carpet

 This rug is very significant for a number of reasons, First of all it was the first Mamluk rug published in a book in Friedrich Sarre's Orientalische Teppiche. Mit Unterstutzung des K.u.K. Handels-Ministeriums, Vienna, 1892-96, pl.XXXVIII. This rug is also noteworthy for its square format.

This rug is usually attributed to Mamluk Cairo or early Ottoman Cairo but Jenny Housego has proposed a possible attribution to the Maghreb. The Maghreb is the area of the northern coast of Africa west of Egypt over into Morocco.

The palette is limited to wine-red, green and light blue. The wine red is most likely Indian Lac an insect dye. It is important to remember in Mamluk times they were a major maritime and trading power that controlled the India trade.

• Jacopo Tintoretto (1518-1594), The Doge Pietro Loredan praying to the Virgin, 1569 (oil on canvas)
• Palazzo Ducale, Venice, Italy

THE BAILLET-LATOUR MAMLUK CARPET
EGYPT, PROBABLY CAIRO, EARLY 16TH CENTURY
Price Realized
£782,500 Set Currency
($1,299,733)
Estimate £250,000 - £350,000 ($414,000 - $579,600)
Sale Information
SALE 1519 — ORIENTAL RUGS & CARPETS; 8 April 2014 London, King Street

Lot Description
THE BAILLET-LATOUR MAMLUK CARPET
EGYPT, PROBABLY CAIRO, EARLY 16TH CENTURY
Localised light wear, corroded red, localised repairs, occasional spots of old tint, backed, overall very good condition
8ft.6in. x 7ft.11in. (258cm. x 240cm.)
Provenance
Vincenz Baillet-Latour, Vienna by 1892
With Galerie Sailer, Vienna, by 1986
Literature
Friedrich Sarre, Orientalische Teppiche. Mit Unterstutzung des K.u.K. Handels-Ministeriums, Vienna, 1892-96, pl.XXXVIII.
Hali 31, July/August/September 1986, p.32-33
Lot Notes
The carpets of Mamluk Egypt are the most magnificent and complete group of early carpets to have survived to the present day. Their designs are closely connected to the geometric designs of other Mamluk art forms and are characterised by a complex, almost kaleidoscopic, geometry created by the juxtaposition of colour and form. Their restricted palette of wine-red, green and light blue silky wool and the variety of complex interlocking small octagons are unlike any other group of carpets which has an effect akin to luminescence.

The Mamluk Empire stretched from south east Anatolia to the Hijaz, in modern day Saudi Arabia, taking in Egypt, Syria, Palestine and parts of Sudan and Libya, lasting for over 250 years. The origin of Mamluk carpet production has remained uncertain but it is generally accepted that Cairo is the most likely weaving centre. It is thought that carpet weaving in Egypt commenced under the reign of Sultan Qa'it-bay (r.1468-1496), when there was a golden age of artistic creativity. This theory is supported by 43 surviving documentary sources that make reference to a carpet weaving centre in Cairo, the earliest and most famous of which appears in the writings of an Italian traveller named Barbaro who in 1474 was comparing the carpets of Persia, Cairo and Turkey. This along with a 16th century inventory of the Medici Collection which lists a Mamluk carpet as being 'Un tappeto Cairino', help to establish a chronology for these weavings (Alberto Boralevi, 'Three Egyptian Carpets In Italy', Oriental Carpet & Textile Studies II: Carpets of the Mediterranean Countries 1400-1600, London, 1986, pp.205-220).

Mamluk carpets are unique in the history of carpets both in terms of their design and structure. The lustrous silky wool found in Mamluk carpets is 'S' (clockwise) spun and 'Z' (anti-clockwise)-plied whereas every other group of Eastern carpets are constructed from 'Z'-spun/'S'-plied wool. Louisa Bellinger has shown that the technical characteristics of Mamluk wool is consistent with the characteristics of Egyptian wool used in the production of textiles for centuries (Ernst Kuhnel and Louisa Bellinger, Cairene Rugs and Others Technically Related, Washington DC, 1957, p.80). It has been suggested that the designs are reflections of other forms of Mamluk decorative arts, such as the striking geometric Cairene floor mosaics, tiles, book bindings and architectural woodwork. The strongest correlation appears between the composition of Mamluk carpets and Egyptian fountain courtyards. However, it is interesting to note that the Cairo attribution is not unanimously accepted and, in her article ''Mamluk Carpets' of North Africa', Jenny Housego has put forward an interesting but unproven argument that the square-format Mamluk carpets, such as the Baillet-Latour Mamluk, may in fact have been produced in the Maghreb, which had a long and prestigious history of weaving (''Mamluk Carpets' of North Africa', Oriental Carpet & Textile Studies II: Carpets of the Mediterranean Countries 1400-1600, London, 1986, pp.221-241).

The Baillet-Latour Mamluk carpet relates particularly closely to two important square-format Mamluk weavings with star-shaped medallions, the example in the Osterreichisches Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna, inv. no. T8345, and the Mamluk rug in the Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, formerly in the collection of George Blumenthal, inv. no. 41.190.262. All three of these carpets have a very similar field organisation, they share a rosette and three section cartouche border without additional internal medallions, as well as two tiers of feather-shaped motifs that surround the interior octagon. Where our carpet differs is in its use of five colours instead of the three employed in the other two examples and the very unusually open central medallion with small floating ornaments which make the design feel particularly luminous and almost iridescent due to the large amount of light blue employed in both the inside and outer band of the medallion.

The present carpet, is important not only for its rarity and extraordinary beauty but also for its place in the history of carpet scholarship. It was one of the first Mamluk carpets to be published and appears as plate XXXVIII in the Friedrich Sarre's seminal Orientalische Teppiche, Vienna, 1892-96 (see lot 2 in the present sale), which was the first comprehensive carpet survey and was hugely influential on subsequent texts. In Orientalische Teppiche, the carpet is listed as the property pf ‘Herrn Grafen Vincenz Baillet-Latour’. This is Vincenz Baillet-Latour (1848-1913), an Austrian count and politician, of noble Belgian origins and the grandson of Theodor Count Baillet de Latour (1780-1848).


DEPARTMENT INFORMATION
Rugs & Carpets
KEYWORDS
16th Century
Medallion
Carpet
Rugs & Carpets
Rugs & Carpets
Wool
Egypt
Mamluk (1250-1517)

German Rug Scholars and the Tapedi Dameschini Mistake

Thompson was right, this is not a Syrian rug.

The rug scholars in the late 1800 and early 1900s did not have much to base their attributions upon. They were forced to draw heavily on European sources. The biggest source initially were Oriental Rugs in European Paintings. Another important source was Venetian inventories that mentioned Oriental Rugs. Here is where they ran into a problem.

The Venetian inventories used some potentially confusing terms:        

• Tapedi Turcheschi (Turkish Rugs)

• Tapedi Dameschini (Damascus Rugs)

Then later:       

• Tapedi Cairini (Cairo Rugs)

Old Damascus

Unfortunately the German express train left the tracks at Tapedi Dameschini. They did not really understand what it meant in context. They took the simplistic and overly literal approach and assumed that Tapedi Dameschini meant a rug made in Damascus or at least one from Syria. This was because they did not understand Venetian trading in the 14th 15th and 16th centuries. For that matter I am not sure if they really understood what a Turkish rug was but I will address that in another note.

Venice thrived on trade and the two most important trading partners were The Ottoman and The Mamluk. Venice could not just send its merchants to any city in the Mamluk or Ottoman empires. Where the Venetian Merchants could trade was tightly controlled and they could trade in certain Entrepôts. An Entrepôt was a city where good were collected and transshipped much like a Free Trade Zone is today. When a Venetian merchant wanted to trade for goods from or through the Mamluk Empire the two most favorable cities were Damascus and Alexandria. But keep in mind this was not just a place to trade for Mamluk goods it was where Venice traded for goods from Persia, India, Southeast Asia, and China. 

It is easy to forget the scale of the sea trade from Egypt to China in the days before Vasco Da Gama found a sea route to India. When Marco Polo returned home from China in 1292 AD he crossed the Arabian Sea in a typical merchant ship. But keep in mind that ship had 60 passenger cabins and a crew of 300. The sea trade was far bigger than most rug scholars ever account for. Polo departed the ship in IL-Khanid Iran because he wanted to avoid the Mamluk but that ship continued on and goods from that merchant ship would have ended up in Damascus and been offered for trade to Venetian merchants.

So a Tapedi Dameschini was not necessarily a rug made in Syria it was a rug woven anywhere that the Ottoman did not control and was of the type sold in Damascus.

If we follow Palmira Johnson Brummett in “Ottoman Seapower and Levantine Diplomacy in the Age of Discovery” we see how deeply intertwined the Safavid Persians were in the Pre Ottoman era Turkmen Border States and Mamluk Syria. Shah Ismail conquered all the way into Central Anatolia in 1506. He made it as far as Kahramanmaraş. Keep in mind that Kahramanmaraş or Maras as it was called was half way between Adana and Malatya. Central Anatolia rugs were not Turkish in the 15^th century. So when European scholars like Kurt Erdmann (or Thompson) drew the line between Tapedi Turcheschi and Tapedi Dameschini were they calling Central Anatolian rugs Dameschini? NO, Both Erdman and Thompson and for that matter we could throw in Charlie Ellis, Ernst Kuhnel, and Louisa Bellinjer don't make that distinction.

The same applies to Syria when Shah Ismail petitioned The Doge of Venice for bombardiers to help him fight the Ottoman he directed that they be sent through Syria.  Mamluk Syria was Shah Ismail’s gateway to Europe.

So let us look at translation of Erdmann from Jon Thompson’s article in The Arts of the Mamluks in Egypt and Syria: Evolution and Impact

 edited by Doris Behrens-Abouseif

I do not mean to detract from Erdmann. He was a brilliant Architect and Museum Curator.  He had a great knowledge and appreciation of Oriental Rugs. But he and Jon Thompson for that matter do not seem to know much about the Mamluk Empire, Syria and the Turkman Border States. Following Thompson Erdmann did not think Egyptian carpets would be sold in Damascus and Thompson does little to disabuse the notion. But again Thompson is not just a great rug expert he is probably the greatest alive today and one of the greatest who ever lived. He just isn’t a Mamluk historian. 

Museum of Islamic Art Berlin Checkerboard Rug

The Museum of Islamic Art Berlin Checkerboard Rug

The faded areas are old repairs. But the original areas are complete enough to get a clear idea of the rug. My initial reaction is to guess that the Museum of Islamic Art Berlin Checkerboard Rug is a later rug. What do I mean by later? Keep in mind the Mamluk empire fell to the Ottoman in 1517. So I feel this rug is more Ottoman in style which puts this well into the Ottoman period. But keep in mind later could be circa 1650 maybe even 1600.

Why do I think it is later. My visceral reaction is primarily because of the Arabesque leaves. Now I have to research more to see if the facts bear out my initial reaction. Do Arabesque leaves give a valid criteria for dating. 

Compare this to the The Mouncey Checkerboard Rug

I think this is typical of what I am seeing as the older type. It is also what we see in a number of other rugs including the McMullan Checkerboard Rug in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Schürmann Checkerboard Rug.

The McMullan Checkerboard Rug Detail

Not a great image but I suspect that the McMullan Checkerboard Rug is the oldest one here. It makes me anxious to see more examples. 

The Museum of Islamic Art Berlin Checkerboard Rug

Chessboard carpet, Ottoman-Egyptian. Late 16th-early 17th century, 415 x 217 cm. Donated by Wilhelm von Bode, 1905. State Museum of Berlin, Museum of Islamic Arts, inv. no. I. 14. 

The Museum of Islamic Art Berlin Checkerboard Rug images are the Felix Elwert images.

https://www.rugrabbit.com/content/rugs-and-carpets-museum-islamic-art-berlin

The Schürmann Checkerboard Rug

The Schürmann Checkerboard Rug 

Lot 98
East Mediterranean ;Damascus’ checkerboard rug
published in Schürmann “Bilderbuch für Teppichsammler” 1960 plate 21 and Schürmann “Oriental Carpets” 1965 page 30
dated by Schürmann circa 1600
Estimate: € 80,000 – 100,000

Austria Auction Company: Fine Antique Oriental Rugs III

Tuesday 16 September 2014 at 2pm at the Novomatic Forum, Vienna.

The Mouncey Checkerboard Rug - Damascus?

The Mouncey Checkerboard Rug - Damascus?

From the collection of Sir George Mounsey, KCMG., CB, CBE (1879-1966) and was published in  Hand Woven Carpets by A.F. Kendrick and C.E.C Tattersall, New York, 1922, Vol. II, pl. 47.  Kendrick and Tatersall as it is called still stands up well today as the best of British Rug literature in the days before Hali magazine.

The execution of the corners are an interesting clue. It is not the fully unresolved corner that we expect to see in village or Anatolian rugs. It shows a strong indication of a cartoon and or supervised workshop. It is obviously not what we expect from a royal workshop but still it is more refined than a simple village weaver would weave on her own. 

The Checkerboard name comes from a Panel Repeat which in this case is a 9 Panel Repeat. Here we can see that this rug repeats 3 times accross and 3 times up and down. 

Notes from the Christie's Catalog:
A CHEQUERBOARD RUG
PROBABLY DAMASCUS, SYRIA, 16TH CENTURY
Price Realized
£80,500 Set Currency
($133,711)
Estimate
£60,000 - £80,000
($99,360 - $132,480)
Sale Information
SALE 1519 — ORIENTAL RUGS & CARPETS 8 April 2014 London, King StreetLot Description

A CHEQUERBOARD RUG
PROBABLY DAMASCUS, SYRIA, 16TH CENTURY
Light even wear, corroded black, scattered repairs, selvages replaced, minor loss to each end
6ft.1in. x 4ft.7in. (184cm. x 140cm.)
Saleroom Notice
Please note that this carpet was formerly in the collection of Sir George Mounsey, KCMG., CB, CBE (1879-1966) and is listed as being in his collection when it was published in A.F. Kendrick and C.E.C Tattersall, Hand Woven Carpets, New York, 1922, Vol. II, pl. 47. It was sold at Sotheby’s London, 15 October 1943, lot 160 and was sold subsequently at the same sale rooms on 20 March 1959, lot 35.
Literature
Ulrich Schürmann, Orientteppiche, Wiesbaden, 1965, p.30
Friedrich Spuhler, Hans Konig and Martin Volkmann, Old Eastern Carpets: Masterpieces in German Private Collections, Munich, 1978, pl.3, pp.34-35.
Exhibited
Alte Orientteppiche, the Staatliche Museum fur Volkerkunde, Munich, 1978


Lot Notes
Very few chequerboard or compartment carpets have survived and yet they are some of the most recognisable of all classical carpets with their limited palette of vermillion, light blue and green and the bold repeated design of stars with radiating cypresses enclosed by corner angles. There are currently only approximately thirty known examples of these beautiful prismatic rugs and of these Friedrich Spuhler cites that only four are organised in the 3 x 3 hexagon format of the present rug (Friedrich Spuhler, ''Chessboard' Rugs', Oriental Carpet & Textile Studies II: Carpets of the Mediterranean Countries 1400-1600, London, 1986, p.261). The attribution of Damascus as a place of origin is one that dates back to the carpet scholarship of the early 20th century when these rugs tended to be referred to as Damascus or Damascene rugs. However, the attribution is far from secure and has been hotly debated ever since, and the alternative suggestions of Cairo, Rhodes, the Anatolian Adana Plain and, more recently, the Aqqoyunlu Turkmen (Jon Thompson, 'Carpets in the Fifteenth Century', Carpets and Textiles in the Iranian World 1400-1700, Oxford, 2010, pp.31-57) have all been mooted. For a thorough discussion of the subject please see Robert Pinner and Michael Franses, 'The Eastern Mediterranean Carpet Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum', Hali Vol.4 No.1, pp.37-52.

Visually, in the limited palette and kaleidoscopic geometry of their designs, the chequerboard rugs appear to be near relations of Mamluk carpets (see lot 20 in the present sale) and yet there are a number of important technical differences that would appear to rule out the same workshops of origin. The structure of the chequerboard carpets is thick, heavy and rigid, quite unlike the supple and lustrous quality of the Mamluk carpets, the wool is Z spun rather than S spun Mamluk weavings and a different type of red dye is used in each type. Mamluk carpets use lac which is a red dye created from scale insects similar to cochineal and the Chequerboard group use the plant-dye madder (Mark Whiting, 'The Red Dyes of some East Mediterranean Carpets', Hali ibid., pp55-56). Spuhler suggests that it seems more likely that they are related to another group of visually similar weavings, the so-called Para-Mamluk rugs, which have Z spun wool and are nearly identical in structure to the Chequerboard rugs (Friedrich Spuhler, ibid., pp.265-268).

The present carpet relates closely to the McMullan Chequerboard rug in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv no. 69.267 in its organisation of the 3 x 3 hexagon and cartouche and rosette border, but differs in its coloration (Joseph V. McMullan, Islamic Carpets, New York, 1965, pl.3, pp.26-27). The present example has sky blue medallions with red centres which create the impression of being able to look through the centre of the repeated hexagon lattice like a jali screen, whereas the McMullan rug has medallions of alternating colours with the contrasting medallion's colour in its centre. In spite of their rarity, which would suggest a relatively small and short-lived production, a number of these carpets appear in portraits and genre scenes by Italian and Dutch painters from the late 16th century and throughout the 17th century (John Mills, 'Carpets in Italian Paintings', Oriental Carpet & Textile Studies II: Carpets of the Mediterranean Countries 1400-1600, London, 1986, pp.117-118. One of the most effective of these paintings is Gabriel Metsu's 1659 work, A Musical Party, which is currently being exhibited alongside the McMullan Chequerboard rug in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's exhibition Carpets of the East in Paintings of the West.

Iran Restores Sassanid King Statue

Shapur ruled with his father Ardashir I the founder of the Sasanian dynasty. They are noted for their wars against Rome. JBOC

Iran Restores Sassanid King Statue

Statue of Sasanian Persian King Shapur

Statue of Sasanian Persian King Shapur full

Iranian cultural heritage experts are planning to restore the statue of the Sassanid king Shapur I in the southern Fars province.
The restoration project will start soon after Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts Organization provides the necessary funding, Presstv reported.
Located in the cave of Shapur, the seven-meter-tall statue of the second Sassanid King was made of a stalagmite about 1,800 years ago.
The sculpture was pulled down after the Sassanid dynasty collapsed about 1,400 years ago and part of one of its legs was broken. Parts of his arms were also smashed about 70 years ago as a result of an earthquake.
A team of Iranian experts did some restorations in 1957, raising it again on iron and cement feet.
Although their work partially ruined the artistic integrity of the artifact, it could prevent further damage.
The new restoration plan will be a joint project of the cultural heritage office of Fars province and Pasargadae Research Center.

Sassanid Dynasty
The Sassanid Empire was ruled by the Sassanid Dynasty from 224 to 651. The Sassanid Empire was recognized as one of the two main powers in Western Asia and Europe alongside the Roman Empire and later the Byzantine Empire for a period of more than 400 years.
The Empire was founded by Ardeshir I, after the fall of the Arsacids and the defeat of the last Arsacid king, Artabanus IV. The Empire lasted till Yazdegerd III lost control of his empire in a series of invasions from the Arab Caliphate. During its existence, the Sassanid Empire encompassed all of today’s Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, the Caucasus (Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Dagestan), southwestern Central Asia, most of Turkey, certain coastal parts of the Arabian Peninsula, the Persian Gulf area, and areas of southwestern Pakistan.
The Sassanid era, during Late Antiquity, is considered to have been one of Iran’s most important and influential historical periods. In many ways the Sassanid period witnessed the highest achievement of ancient Persian civilization, and constituted the last great Iranian empire before the Muslim conquest and the adoption of Islam.
Persia influenced Roman civilization considerably during the Sassanids’ times, and the empires regarded one another as equals, as exemplified in the letters written by the rulers of the two states addressing each other as “brother”.
The Sassanids’ cultural influence extended far beyond the empire’s territorial borders, reaching as far as Western Europe, Africa, China, and India. It played a prominent role in the formation of both European and Asiatic medieval art. This influence, and especially the dynasty’s unique, aristocratic culture, carried forward to the early Islamic world after the Muslim conquest of Iran.
Art 

Artistically, the Sassanid period witnessed some of the highest achievements of Persian civilization. Much of what later became known as Muslim culture, including architecture and writing, was originally drawn from Persian culture. At its peak the Sassanid Empire stretched from Syria to northwest India, but its influence was felt far beyond these political boundaries. Sassanid motifs found their way into the art of Central Asia and China, the Byzantine Empire, and even Merovingian France. Islamic art however, was the true heir to Sassanid art, whose concepts it was to assimilate while, at the same time instilling fresh life and renewed vigor into it. According to Will Durant:
“Sassanid art exported its forms and motifs eastward into India, Turkestan, and China, westward into Syria, Asia Minor, Constantinople, the Balkans, Egypt, and Spain. Probably its influence helped to change the emphasis in Greek art from classic representation to Byzantine ornament, and in Latin Christian art from wooden ceilings to brick or stone vaults and domes and buttressed walls.”
Sassanid carvings at Taq-e Bostan and Naqsh-e Rustam were colored; so were many features of the palaces; but only traces of such painting remain. The literature, however, makes it clear that the art of painting flourished in Sassanid times; the prophet Mani is reported to have founded a school of painting; Ferdowsi speaks of Persian magnates adorning their mansions with pictures of Iranian heroes; and the poet al-Buhturi describes the murals in the palace at Ctesiphon.
When a Sassanid king died, the best painter of the time was called upon to make a portrait of him for a collection kept in the royal treasury.
Painting, sculpture, pottery, and other forms of decoration shared their designs with Sassanid textile art. Silks, embroideries, brocades, damasks, tapestries, chair covers, canopies, tents, and rugs were woven with patience and masterly skill, and were dyed in warm tints of yellow, blue, and green.
The two dozen Sassanid textiles that have survived are among the most highly valued fabrics in existence. Even in their own day, Sassanid textiles were admired and imitated from Egypt to the Far East; and during the Middle Ages they were favored for clothing the relics of Christian saints.
When Heraclius captured the palace of Khosru Parviz at Dastagerd, delicate embroideries and an immense rug were among his most precious spoils.
Famous was the “Winter Carpet”, also known as “Khosro’s Spring” (Spring Season Carpet) of Khosru Anushirvan, designed to make him forget winter in its spring and summer scenes: flowers and fruits made of inwoven rubies and diamonds grew, in this carpet, beside walks of silver and brooks of pearls traced on a ground of gold.
Harun Al-Rashid prided himself on a spacious Sassanid rug thickly studded with jewelry. Persians wrote love poems about their rugs. 

Are Ushak rugs made in Iran?

Are Ushak rugs made in Iran? 
Ushak rugs are a traditional Turkish rug with certain distinct characteristics. The rugs are thick with wool pile on a wool foundation. The knot counts tend to be low and I generally expect then to be less than 100 knots per square inch. Quite often the wool is very soft and is said to be part goat wool. 
Could they be making Ushak rugs in Mahabad, Iran? Labor is expensive in Turkey which means weavers are taking higher paying manufacturing jobs so fewer and fewer rugs are being woven. Iran has plenty of weavers but with the embargo the huge US market is closed to them. Mahabad produced great Sauj Bulaq but there is not a strong market for the modern Kurdish rugs produced there. 
So it is very possible that if they started weaving Ushak rugs as soon they made it to Germany no one in US Customs would identify them as Persian rugs. I will keep my eyes open for new Ushak rugs. I think I could tell by the feel of the wool.  JBOC

New Persian Ushak in an Arts and Crafts Pattern

Back of the above rug.

Ushak carpets also known as Ziegler carpets, made by the artist carpet weavers of Mahabad in West Azarbaijan province, are very popular in international markets specially among American buyers.
The carpets made in this city are exported to many countries like Japan, Canada, Russia, Pakistan, Europe and Arab countries of the Middle East.
Among all the carpets made by Mahabad carpet weavers popular in foreign countries, Ushak or Ziegler carpets stands out: A local hand-made carpet whose fibers are made of sheep fur and colored with natural and herbal materials.
This 150 year old carpet is mostly made in huge sizes and since the fibers used in it are thick, they call it Ushak which means thick-fibered.
According to Yaqub Bab Sur, a carpet expert in the city of Mahabad, in the few years since this kind of carpet has been produced, more than 10 thousand square meters have been exported to foreign countries.
He also noted the designs used in this carpet are inspired by nature and up to 8 colors are used in its making.
Bab Sur also added: “Today more than 200 carpet weavers in Mahabad are making Ushak carpets.
Suitable publicity for this carpet is one of the reasons it has become so popular in the West, Chia Qorbani Aqdam, manager of the union of hand-made carpets said, adding: “Paying more attention to carpet exportation can increase production as well as quality which would lead to the presence of Iran's carpet in international markets.”
According to Qurbani Aqdam, the government must have proper plans in order to encourage and facilitate the carpet industry particularly in West Azarbaijan province through insurance and business support. http://www.iran-daily.com/News/110731.html
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|News ID:110731
Publish Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2015 20:25:08 GMT
Service: Iran

The city of Mahabad, with a production of more than 4 thousand square meters of hand-made carpets a year and due to the high variety and quality of its carpets, has become a major carpet producing zone in West Azarbaijan province.

American Friends of the Middle East CIA Front Organization

American Friends of the Middle East

In 1951 Kermit “Kim” Roosevelt, Jr. and his long time hatchet man Donald Newton Wilber put together American Friends of the Middle East. As window dressing they hid behind such luminaries such as columnist Dorothy Thompson, Reverend Harry Emerson Fosdick and more than 20 others. But Kim Roosevelt was executive secretary in the early days.

While they made a point of fund raising American Friends of the Middle East was funded by the Central Intelligence Agency and ARAMCO. King Abdulaziz  had threatened to nationalize ARAMCO a year earlier so it is possible that ARAMCO was either operating on its own or at the direction of Saudi Intelligence.

The American Friends of the Middle East was an Anti-Zionist and Pro-Arab organization. It is easy to stretch Anti-Zionism into Anti-Semitism but I think that is an unfair characterization.
George O'Bannon worked for American Friends of the Middle East in 1964-1965.

George W. O’Bannon, Donald N. Wilber and American friends of the Middle east

This is the article by Don Wilber that links George O'Bannon to American friends of the Middle east. Wilber revealed his ties to the CIA in his last book Adventuires in the Middle East. By telling how he met O'Bannon he closes a circle since American friends of the Middle east has been acknowledged as a CIA Front that was jointly funded by the CIA and ARAMCO

[This article originally appeared in print in Volume 13, No. 3 of Oriental Rug Review, in 1993.]
George W. O’Bannon, An Irishman In Friendly Disguise by Donald N. Wilber

We had the pleasure of meeting George and Helen O’Bannon in 1964 when he worked for the American friends of the Middle east, an influential organization in which we had a strong interest. From 1966 to 1968 George was Assistant Director of the Peace Corps in Afghanistan. While he traveled widely in that country, Helen added to their growing family that was to number four sons: Patrick, Colin, and Sean and Casey, twins.

 George and Helen O’Bannon with Patrick, Colin, and the twins Sean and Casey

Helen added to their growing family that was to number four sons: Patrick, Colin, and Sean and Casey, twins.
On these travels, rugs were under foot: his first purchase was a Nain, a beginner’s choice in the land where rugs of many local types were available. As he was absorbed into the rug world, Baluchs and Turkomans became his specialties and he moved into the forefront of experts in these fields.

In 1973 he started dealing in rugs, and in 1976 opened a rug shop in Pittsburgh, O’Bannon’s Oriental Rugs. He was an early member of the Princeton Rug Society and spoke often to us. His base at Pittsburgh was also that of Helen, a member of the Public Utility Commission of Pennsylvania. Brilliant Helen was an outstanding administrator with a far reaching vision that she displayed later in a major post, Senior Vice President, at the University of Pennsylvania. And she always maintained a close connection with Wellesley, her college.

George also was publishing: in 1974 The Turkoman Carpet, featuring rugs from Afghanistan and establishing a bridge between the old and the new. About 1976 appeared Oriental Rugs From Western Pennsylvania Collections, Kazak and Uzbek Rugs from Afghanistan appeared in 1979 and Tulu: Traditional Rugs from Central Anatolia in 1987. The same year, his role of frequent contributor of articles to Oriental Rug Review blossomed into a very active profession as editor of the magazine.

By 1983 George and Helen were in a new home in a suburb of Philadelphia, facing a bright future together. In 1985, he opened another rug gallery on Philadelphia’s Spring Street. But, in 1988 the bright future vanished: at 49, Helen was struck down by a fatal affliction.

George stayed for some time in the inner city, but the town was no longer home and he moved to southern Arizona, not a great distance from the region where he spent his childhood. Publication continues. Now his exhaustive bibliography of rug books is at press.

But a short recitation of events in his career does not give us George as a person: blessed with an even temper, incapable of being either cross or rude; a man kind to all and who keeps in touch with friends for many years. At a time when the rug world is plagued by know-it-alls, and a few bad tempered persons, George stands for sanity, honesty, and experience. One of his articles questioned the validity of a Turkoman piece at auction, and was rewarded by a savage personal attack by the leader of the ill-tempered group. Later he wrote a rather devastating review of a display of kilims that were highly overpraised by the organizers of the show. Since then, this praise has been muted.

George is a man of many interests, and the range of his endeavors in the field of rug studies alone is exhausting to contemplate. Despite his hectic schedule, or maybe because of it, George seems always (almost always) available.

[This article originally appeared in print in Volume 13, No. 3 of Oriental Rug Review, in 1993]