Pod Blacha Palace, Warzaw Poland

[Steve Price]

Hi People

This thread is a carryover from our former software package. It was started by Ivan Sonderholm. Here is a link to it:

http://www.turkotek.com/VB22/showthread.php?threa did=2367

Regards

Steve Price

[Marek Szymanowicz]

Hallo everybody !!!

I'm a rug fan from Poland and I found your forum some time ago - I'm still reading and reading and reading.........
I've just found your info about the "Pod Blachą" Palace Collection.
Its a nice and worth having-a-look collection.
If you are interested I can try to get you more details on Sahakian family in Poland and his collection.

I'd like to inform you too that there is another excellent collection of Mr Kulczycki in a museum in Zakopane (southern Poland) - older and more interesting pieces.

I'll write you more as soon as I check my bookshelfes at home, I'm sure I have some exhibition catalogues or so on.

regards
marek

[Filiberto Boncompagni]

Welcome aboard, Marek.

Of course we are interested. Feel free to send your images to me or Steve.
Best regards,

Filiberto

[Marek Szymanowicz]

Hallo Again

Thank you Filiberto. It's an honour to be here with you all and I'm sure that I will be able to learn a lot from you, if there will be some knowledge that I can give to You - it'll be my pleasure.

But back to the "Palac Pod Blachą" story..... I'll do my best to keep it short thou you can make a movie out of it ;)

Mrs Teresa Sahakian born in 1915 in Warsaw, Poland, married to well older Armenian with a Persian Passport, George Sahakian who escapped from Stalinism in Moscow and started to work for National Museum in Warsaw. An economist, businessman and Art Collectour he was.
In 1940 as the beggining of the WWII came thanks to persian passports they could run away from occupied Poland taking whole collection with them and all the time thinking how to hide it and not to lose even a piece from it.
They moved to Vienna but as soon as the Soviets were coming closer with plans of occupying the city, they decided to move again and hide in some little village were they were living in a flat with more than 500 carpets hidden everywhere.
After many many adventures, the end of war came and in 1948 Sahakians landed in Brussels. They sold few of their most precious rugs and invested the money in importing carpets via Hamburg and London and established a carpet shop. In 1973 Teresa was tittled an expert by Chambre des Antiquaires de Belgique and Chambre Belge des Experts en Oeuvres d'Art.
She was offered accomodation in Yverdon castle in Switzerland in exchange for establishing a found to exhibit her collection there but she never agreed on such offers. Many times was also asked to sell her goods but as she always answered: Selling this staff would make me rich but what would I do with the money? - You want me to eat two dinners every day? ;)

In the beggining of 90' she established a "Teresa Sahakian Foundation" and she donated more than 500 rugs and carpets to the Royal Castle in Warsaw. After she passed away in her small flat in Brussels in December 2007 other group of carpets, rugs and other oriental and european art works joined the collection in Warsaw which is presented in Palac Pod Blacha - a branch of Royal Palace in Warsaw (Zamek Królewski w Warszawie). The collection consists of 579 objects of which 562 are textiles.

Here are some pictures I could find in the net. I have a catalogue of one of the exhibitions but it was caucasians only and there is lot lot more to see.

http://www.zamek-krolewski.pl/pub/images/wystawy_stale/kobierce/kobierzec_smoczy.jpg

http://www.zamek-krolewski.pl/pub/images/wystawy_stale/kobierce/kobierzec_zejchur.jp g

http://www.zamek.malbork.pl/img_all/wystawy/kobierzec.jpg

[Filiberto Boncompagni]

Thanks Marek,

I have that photo of the Seichur “dog” rug somewhere…
Regards,

Filiberto

[Marek Szymanowicz]

Hallo Filiberto.

The pictures I've posted are all I could find in the net, and I'm sure they're not realy representative. The seyhur dog is from the museums website.

In my house I found the catalogue of one small exhibition of Sahakian Collection that I've seen few years ago. I didn't scan anything for you because as I looked at the pictures (only 54 exhibits) I realised that they make the same impression as the whole exhibition - I passed it without even realizing that it's a part of a big museal collection?
WHY ???
Because all the rugs looked totaly new, in perfect conditions and full of excellent colours. They were all dated about end or secound half of XIX century - but the whole impresion was - It's all just a smart-turkish-rug-seller show ;)
They looked exactly like all the ones we see in rugbooks and catalogues - so a perfect copy of all staff ;) too perfect.
than I found out that IT IS real staff thou it looks like it was a part of the Sahakian trade leftovers. BUT now as I see the 54 rugs are a part of almost 600 than I'm sure there must be more realy good and old ones.
So next time I'm in Warsaw I'll have to check the exhibition.
I'll let you all know.
In the mean time I'll look for some materials about the other collection that I realy like. comming soon..

regards to all
marek