A Boteh a Day Keeps the Covid Away

[Chuck Wagner]

Pat,
The more I stare at your diagonal bag, the more I think Shahsavan, because of the palette...

Jim,
The more I stare at your bag, the more I think it would look better at my place...

Joel,

I can only recall seeing one other somewhat similar Afshar double chanteh.

I wasn't sure whether you were referring to the presence of botehs or the bag geometry.

So I assumed, bag geometry, because then I can add this one to the mix.

Some people might be able to stare at it long enough and see botehs, as well. Who knows....

http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/afdbl01.jpg

Regards
Chuck

[Filiberto Boncompagni]

Hi Pat,
Maybe it is the fact that the botehs on my small rug in post #55 are recumbent botehs which so strongly affects the sensibilities of some of our more sensitive members.
I find your insistence in peddling those shrubs as botehs really botehring... :laughing_2: :pie:

[Joel Greifinger]

Chuck,

What are the dimensions on that bag with the mesmerizing middle? That one looks like it has led a sheltered life.

Joel

[Filiberto Boncompagni]

Hi Chuck,

I never saw before that motif on the faces of your bag. :confused:

Some people might be able to stare at it long enough and see botehs, as well

Yessss! It could have been created by the superimposition and rotation of eight botehs... :clap:

Filiberto

[Joel Greifinger]

Chuck,

Ain't it always the way? :wizard: Now that you mention it, I found this one online:

https://i.postimg.cc/Qxzn3dBz/Afshar-chanteh.jpg

It's 81 x 34cm (32.5" x 13.5") and, like yours, has a variant of the Afshar gol farang motif on the faces.

Joel

[Dinie Gootjes]

The Afshar must have had a complete cottage industry going of these little double bags with the nice central strip. Here are a few more:

https://i.postimg.cc/02ZsgDRB/Baback-RR.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/5yNs8H7X/Ufuklar-Sadettin-RR-1.jpg

And with a plain centre:

https://i.postimg.cc/7h6FMPmZ/Afshar-chanteh-Najib.jpg

I have a special interest in gul ferangi in the hands of tribal or village weavers. This is as close to the original as I could get. The bags all have cut outs from it, but the four buds (and often the leaves) around the central rose remain:

https://i.postimg.cc/nr2vZpJB/Dmitriy-Afshar-2.jpg

With time and 'creativity' you can get this :pie::

https://i.postimg.cc/13r4jJyV/Khalid-Qadeer-Afshars.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/W1NshjPt/T2e-C16-JHJHIE9nysd571-BQ13-u1-TO-60-85.jpg

The bags above are not mine. I do have a single one, but no picture.

[Joel Greifinger]

The Afshar must have had a complete cottage industry going of these little double bags with the nice central strip.

Dinie,

From the looks of the condition of most all of those small gul farangi bags, the cottage industry was producing decorative items, not utilitarian objects for storage or transport. The double chanteh I posted with the botehs (in #59) looks likely to have been a different type of production. And, I wonder what the time frame was on all of these pieces.
:felix:

Joel

[Chuck Wagner]

Dinie,

I love the rendering on your fourth example. I have an piece where someone tried that, and failed badly... :(

Joel,

In an age of declining weaving skills, one person's cottage industry is another's source of barter material, I suspect. And something for the rug souk as well.

I know that John Wertime has (or, had, at one point in time, anyway) a bag very similar to mine. Both show very little - but, a little - wear.

When weavings are in very good condition it's everyone's habit to assume they're new. And maybe so, but given the decline I mentioned I'm inclined to put mine between 1930 and 1960 and just figure that they could also be dowry items kept by the family.

Here are a couple closeups:

http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/afdbl02.jpg


http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/afdbl03.jpg

Regards
Chuck

[Dinie Gootjes]

Joel, I agree your example with the botehs is different. I was only thinking of the little gul ferangi double bags. All very similar in format and size, all derived from the same original rose design. Most show very little wear, with closure tabs in good condition, in contrast to your boteh bags. For me that indicates decorative items, as you say, with not too much age. A few may have been dowry items, but it is unlikely that they all were so prized. Many other chanteh show hard wear.

Chuck, that nicely articulated design is from a rug that looks like it was pretty close to the source. Most bags are simplified, I also have one that gets more points for effort than for result.

[Chuck Wagner]

Joel, et al.

As you can see from the closeup of the back, the weaver used color very subtly; here's a more revealing look at the fromt.

http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/afdbl04.jpg

Regards
Chuck

[Joel Greifinger]

Chuck,

That one is in full florid bloom. :dancer:

I came across this Afshar gul farangi double chanteh with a much simpler bridge that has clearly put in more service than those others. It was in a presentation by Bob Emry at the Textile Museum in 2014:

https://rjohnhowe.files.word press.com/2014/08/k60.jpg?w=450&h=811

Joel

[Patrick Weiler]

This "foreign flower" gul farangi design has always been somewhat inscrutable to me. The story is that the French banned oriental rugs in order to build a domestic rug industry (long story short) and their use of floral forms influenced the rug-weavers from Turkey to the Caucasus to Persia to Central Asia to reinvent it in their own image. "The pre-history of the Savonnerie manufacture lies in the concerns of Henri IV to revive the French luxury arts, which had collapsed in the disorders of civil violence in the Wars of Religion. French silver was being drained to the Levant and Persia for the purchase of knotted-pile carpets. Among the craftsmen the king provided with studios and workshops in the galleries of the Louvre itself, was Pierre Dupont. The (Savonnerie) manufactory had its immediate origins in a carpet manufactory established in a former soap factory (French savon) on the Quai de Chaillot downstream of Paris in 1615 by Pierre DuPont, who was returning from the Levant."
I have a couple of these of the Khamseh variety. This happens to be a rather large one, 30" x 28" - 76c71cm. It has 10x10 100kpsi symmetric knots. This deign is so complex that I have wondered how a tribal weaver could remember how to weave it. This particular piece is quite complicated, yet the weaver improvised like a master jazz musician in the whimsical details.

http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/PAT_W_kham7.jpg

However, in this version, the alternating large flowers do not have the four buds surrounding them like those in the section which Dinie posted below.

http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/PAT_W_kham6.jpg

What it DOES have, though, is the Recumbent Boteh border at the top, in soumak!

http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/PAT_W_kham5.jpg

I folded this over to also show where the weaver "adjusted" the white field (noticeable in the upper, right corner of the full bag) by sloping the weaving, eliminating several rows of weft.
Our Seattle Textile and Rug Society had Robert Chenciner give a talk sometime after his book Madder Red was published in 2000. I brought this piece in for him to look at. One of the reds (in the border) is "strong" but he said it was certainly madder. Works for me!
:sp:
Patrick Weiler

[Jim Miller]

[QUOTE]
The more I stare at your bag, the more I think it would look better at my place...

Thanks, Chuck. I assume you are referring to the bag with the meandering vines (OK, they are not attached botehs :pie:, but I had fun thinking about it)

It is an unusual bag face. I especially like the blue border and the color contrasts in the field. The black outlines are heavily corroded giving the pile a sense of relief.

Some debate as to whether it is Karabagh or Shahsavan. The strip at the bottom (as shown in image) is sumac. Aside from the Kurdish bush in the second row that Joel pointed out, I am not sure what any of the other devices represent, though they are consistently drawn across the rows.

Cheers
Jim

[Dinie Gootjes]

However, in this version, the alternating large flowers do not have the four buds surrounding them like those in the section which Dinie posted below.

Because this one comes from another GF design :wizard:, a fully open rose, with beside it a less developed one and a few tight buds, here in a Qashqai bag face:

https://i.postimg.cc/C5KD6fHB/Qashqa-i-Collins-1500.jpg

The one above has an even more intricate design than yours, with the roses offset, and the alternating rows horizontally mirrored. Maybe the original form? These all have the white background with 'scribbles', which in some cases starts to resemble white boxes (this is one of yours, Pat?),

https://i.postimg.cc/v83HQKbd/Afshar-P-Weiler-TT.jpg

till we get something like this:

https://i.postimg.cc/vHCyTFKC/Afshar-Nomada.jpg

I have a feeling the next one is from the same family, but that might be a stretch. The whole thing is a stretch anyway ;-).

https://i.postimg.cc/sXBdsTc3/Kamoogallery-Afshar-Kerman-25x30-cm-1940.jpg

I am not interested in perfect copies of a western rug, but I find the things tribal or village weavers do with the designs fascinating.

[Patrick Weiler]

We don't find many botehs in Turkmen work, but SW Persian pieces certainly make up for that woeful lack. Here is a popular type, the Khamseh Bird or Chicken rug. Made "famous" by James Opie, these are a perennial favorite - especially the valuable bird bags. This one has been in my care for decades. It is worn, torn and tattered, but has a few botehs to add to the birds.
It was this way when I bought it, I swear!
The colors more closely approximate the left side, and the close up. Hanging on a downstairs wall with poor lighting, my nemesis, the right side is too orange.

http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/PAT_W_kham1.jpg

And here, in the close up, is a very rare two-legged boteh! They apparently are too quick to get caught, which is why they are seldom seen.

http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/PAT_W_kham3.jpg

This two-legged boteh is proof that the origin of the boteh has nothing to do with almonds or cypress trees, but small-headed, long-nosed fat men.
:banana:
:errormonkey:

Patrick Weiler

[Filiberto Boncompagni2]

This particular piece is quite complicated, yet the weaver improvised like a master jazz musician in the whimsical details.

http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/PAT_W_kham7.jpg

I love your piece! It's a Savonnerie in an highly abstract rendition. The jazz analogy works well too. :clap:

Not sure if there are any botehs, though. :(

No use of botehs in the original Savonnerie for sure. :devil:

:cheers:

[Chuck Wagner]

Greetings all,

Here's another of the Too-Much-Stuff-In-Too-Little-Space-And-Badly-Executed-As-Well subset of the gul farangi genre.

Personally, judging against the others shown here, I think this one makes a case for having some fun with another thread, about travesties that we bought anyway :laughing_2:


http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/afrg01.jpg


http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/afrg02.jpg


http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/afrg03.jpg

Regards
Chuck

[Patrick Weiler]

Chuck
Harkening back to your post #46, you showed a great bag with brilliant colors and with what I call the back-to-back-C border. A version of that border can be found in Caucasian pieces, but also in Khamseh work, as seen in this curious item. It is a Khamseh bagface between 25" to 27" wide and 24" tall. I posted it this direction because the closure tabs were at the beginning of the bag on the loom, pile pointing down. It has 7h x 10v symmetric knots per square inch with moderately depressed warps of light/dark wool and very dark wool wefts. The border in your piece is the more standard version, with both Cs the same color, where in this piece each of the back-to-back C components is a different color.

http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/PAT_W_kham8a.jpg

This bagface contains a full one-quarter of a dozen squarish botehs!
:clap:
:cheers:
The close up shows the blue one with red outline:

http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/PAT_W_kham8.jpg

Your guess is as good as mine regarding what to call this design, though. The white serrated leaf design features prominently in Khamseh bags and rugs, but here the leaves are corralled in a funky framework floating on a mid-blue field. The design reads as well in this direction as it would upside down. It seems to be unique, so if you find the other half, let me know!

Patrick Weiler

[Joel Greifinger]

Pat,

If we're going to play 'find the botehs in the bag face' :monalisa:, I guess I'll start off with an easy one.

https://i.postimg.cc/pVKTwDt7/Afshar-chanteh-Emry.jpg

Joel

[Patrick Weiler]

Dinie,

Way back in post 77, you asked if the second bag you show was one of mine. Well, it does need a wash, but here is a bit brighter picture:

http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/PAT_W_kham9.jpg

The alternating larger flowers on this piece do retain the "antler-like" projections on each corner, as seen in your earlier versions which also contain "buds" - but this later version is missing the buds. This bag is missing half of the border on 3 sides, and it looks like some surgery was done where a large bite was taken out of the top and a section of the other face of this bag was amputated and re-attached to this one.
The most unusual aspect of this Frankenstein bag is the right side of the field, where the weaver just decided to weave an entirely different design where she had some extra room.
It is remarkably similar to Chuck's version, which now requires a "name" because we have several examples. I suggest the name "Pandora-Schrodinger's Farangi" because the flowers are all sort of in boxes and yet not in boxes at the same time. And the name "Pandora-Schrodinger's Farangi" just sort of rolls off the tongue.
:steve:

Joel,
I am almost convinced to join with the Filiberto and Chuck faction and claim that your bagface - which I would call a Kham-fshar - has no actual botehs in it.
Arguably, one could infer that the oddly shaped protrusions on the vine of the "floral-vine meander border" could be construed as botehs.
But they are not incipient botehs, vestigal botehs, recumbent botehs or even residual botehs. They are "imaginary botehs". Also known as "Schrodinger's Botehs".
:wizard:
Patrick Weiler