Scandinavian Textile Collector with Question about New Acquisition

[Gregory Shreve]

I am a collector of Norwegian and Scandinavian textiles (traditional clothing, coverlets, tapestries and wall hangings, primarily). I came across this item, which is either a small fringed rug or a hanging. (See pictures below).

I was intrigued by its appearance, especially the ubiquitous eight-pointed stars, the tree motif (tree of life?) and the two birds. It feels Scandinavian to me, but I must admit I have not seen anything exactly like it before. It may not be Scandinavian at all. I once made a similar error with Hardanger and Transylvanian Kalotaszeg embroidery pieces LOL.

I do know from this Forum (Swedish-Anatolian Connection) that many Scandinavian weaving motifs/patterns were influenced from traditions much further east over the centuries. Perhaps someone has seen something similar to this and might steer me in the right direction. Any comments would be helpful.

https://i.postimg.cc/PvLqmpkJ/Reduced-Small-Rug-Hanging-1.jpg (https://postimg.cc/PvLqmpkJ)

https://i.postimg.cc/qgYqpL83/Reduced-Small-Rug-Hanging-2.jpg (https://postimg.cc/qgYqpL83)

https://i.postimg.cc/dLy13yBS/Reduced-Small-Rug-Hanging-3.jpg (https://postimg.cc/dLy13yBS)

https://i.postimg.cc/dDDDMXTF/Reduced-Small-Rug-Hanging-4.jpg (https://postimg.cc/dDDDMXTF)

[Joel Greifinger]

Hi Greg,

It looks to me like a recently made decorative wall-hanging, probably Swedish. It makes use of a variety of motifs that are common on older Swedish rolakan pieces, including the repeated border motif, that is a version of the ones seen in this early 19th century agedyna:

https://i.postimg.cc/VvvbF805/Ro-lakan-det.jpg

Joel Greifinger

[Egbert Vennema]

Maybe supportive;Full title: Old Swedish Weavings from North to South: A Collection of Everyday Swedish Weavings from 1850 to 1950
Author: Doris Wiklund, translated by Becky Ashenden
Details: Vavstuga Press, 2010. 9 3/4" x 6 3/4", hardcover, 272pp.

:cheers:

[Joel Greifinger]

I am a collector of Norwegian and Scandinavian textiles (traditional clothing, coverlets, tapestries and wall hangings, primarily).

Hi Greg,

You mentioned that you collect Norwegian textiles, including coverlets. Do you have any of this type, woven in rutevev (square-weave) technique that you could share? Or any other Norwegian coverlets?

https://i.postimg.cc/Y9FQMrf9/Ruta-kle-copy.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/Gt1GpWqj/Ruta-kle-web.jpg

Joel

[Wendel Swan]

Hello Joel and all,

I haven't posted on Turkotek for ages, but I just saw this thread and thought I would post images of my Norwegian coverlets and putetraek (small cushion covers). Long ago when I bought my first Norwegian textile, a putetraek, I thought it was Swedish. There are more resources for images of Swedish material than for Norwegian, but the two are each distinctive.

However, I'm having troubles figuring out how to upload images.

Wendel

[Filiberto Boncompagni2]

Hi Wendel, glad to see you back.

For uploading your images, either you follow the instructions here:

http://www.turkotek.com/VB37/showthread.php?t=791 5

Or you send them to Joel, Chuck or me.

Our email addresses are on the home page.
Today I will be out, so I cannot guarantee a quick service, probably.

Regards,

[Joel Greifinger]

Hi Wendel,

I’m looking forward to seeing your Norwegian pieces. As you say, there are limited resources for images of Norwegian textiles.

Just send me the images, and I’ll insert them into your post.

Best,
Joel

Meanwhile, here are a couple of Norwegian coverlets that sold at Skinner as Swedish in the last number of years:

https://i.postimg.cc/G2MjC84Z/Rutevev-Skinner-1.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/HnV9sY5j/Skinner-rutevev.jpg

[Wendel Swan]

Hello Joel, Filiberto and all,

Amidst my Swedish weavings are just a few from Norway. The first two are coverlets which, like others from Norway, seem to be smaller than their Swedish counterparts as well as those from the Near East or the United States. Norwegian textiles are most commonly plain weave and purely geometric while those from Sweden are of a wide variety of structures, resulting in curvilinear forms, including plants and animals.

The first coverlet is similar to others posted here but I favor the second, which has a palette akin to the first putetraek (small cushion cover similar in size to a khorjin face) which follows it. I can't attribute the area of weaving to either one.

There are two more putetraek, followed by a jynne (the Swedish term for such a small cushion cover) to distinguish those woven in Norway from those woven in Sweden.

https://i.postimg.cc/hjhtZVCT/IMG-0039.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/0y8JvWcq/IMG-0040.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/tgc1hXyX/IMG-0041.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/GmqTmF5T/IMG-0042.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/pdrhhmwG/IMG-0043.jpg

[Richard Tomlinson]

Hello Wendel


I am happy to see you are alive and well !! I tried emailing you several times - perhaps I have the wrong email address?

I had a quick question - will ask here if it is OK? - I do not want to hijack this thread.

You have a long format Shahsavan bag - I just wanted to know if it is piled or reverse soumac? Or Zili?

The image I have is blurry.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qWRjK_DE6hlC0hDzPXB ovinMvUZCYReP/view?usp=sharing

Regards
Richard Tomlinson
richardfromdurban@gm ail.com

[Joel Greifinger]

Hi Wendel and all,

I quite like both of your square weave (rutevev) coverlets and agree that the second is particularly striking.

In terms of online resources for Norwegian coverlets, the best one I know is this:

https://digitaltmuseum.no/search/?q=%C3%85kle%20rutev ev&o=0&n=80

The Vesterheim Museum in Decorah, Iowa also has a small, but nice online collection:

https://collections.vesterhe im.org/collections/textiles/

From what I can glean, older examples of Norwegian seat covers in rutevev are unusual. In the digitalmuseum.no database, there are 2,606 listings for seat covers (putetrekk), of which only eighteen are square weave:

https://digitaltmuseum.no/search/?q=putetrekk%20&o=0&n=176

Joel

[Wendel Swan]

Thanks for the links, Joel. They're very helpful. Since my focus has been more on Swedish material, I haven't searched as much for Norwegian textiles. The books I have provided enough information for me to get by. Until now.

I looked through the third link to DigitalMuseum (putetrekk) and found quite a few images of embroidered putetrekk that rather closely resemble one of mine, although I always thought mine was Swedish. I bought it from a dealer/collector in Sweden. An image of mine dated 1797 is attached.

Seeing so many other similar examples attributed to Norway compels me to think that mine probably is Norwegian also.

One in the link is dated 1676, which is remarkably early, so early that I wondered whether that date reflects its year of being woven. The inwoven dates on Swedish material are quite reliable. The translation of the DM putetrekk refers to it having "chrome green," a term developed in the 19th Century. However, I don't think it's from the synthetic era.

I don't mean to divert this discussion from the original post, but the links you provided are so very helpful in broadening our knowledge of Scandinavian weavings. Again, mine from 1797 is here.

https://i.postimg.cc/hv5W1Px3/Norw-maybe-putetrekk-1797.jpg

[Joel Greifinger]

Seeing so many other similar examples attributed to Norway compels me to think that mine probably is Norwegian also.

Hi Wendel,

That's a wonderful embroidered seat cover, but I think it is very hard to judge whether it is a Swedish jynne or a Norwegian putetrekk. As you noted, there are many similar extant Norwegian examples from the same period. But, there are also Swedish ones with similar designs and colors, some of which are also dated to around that time:

https://i.postimg.cc/Hj1cfYzR/Screen-Shot-2021-10-05-at-9-54-40-AM.png

https://i.postimg.cc/kgFh4wVR/Screen-Shot-2021-10-05-at-9-57-23-AM.png

https://i.postimg.cc/jjx3JNNg/Screen-Shot-2021-10-05-at-10-01-15-AM.png

https://i.postimg.cc/T3fvCKgm/Screen-Shot-2021-10-05-at-10-17-38-AM.png
Either way, a lovely thing.

Joel

[Chuck Wagner]

Joel, Wendel,

To my eye - and being unfamiliar with the history of motifs of the region - Wendel's piece has a distinctly Uzbek look to me.

Just sayin...

Regards
Chuck

[Filiberto Boncompagni2]

Hi Chuck,

I had exactly the same thought :)

[Wendel Swan]

Hi Joel,

Your links provided me with some valuable information that I probably would not have encountered myself. The differences between Swedish and Norwegian textiles, other crafts, languages and countries are historically blurred yet still distinctive at times. There could have been some further discussion, but I don't know what to make of the Uzbek suggestion, so I'll bow out.

Wendel

[Chuck Wagner]

Hi Wendel,

I was referring specifically to the floral motifs and their resemblance to some suzani work I've seen.

I don't think it's as far-fetched as it may sound.

We had an extended discussion on the penetration of Viking trade into Central Asia several years ago:

www.turkotek.com/misc_00143/Swedish1.pdf

Regards
Chuck

[Wendel Swan]

Hello Chuck and Filiberto,

Just to understand what you have posted, do you both feel that it is not far-fetched for you to believe that the ground ground cushion I posted might be or probably is Uzbek rather than Scandinavian? If so, what is your basis for those opinions?

Wendel

[Chuck Wagner]

Hi Wendel,

To reiterate:
I was referring specifically to the floral motifs and their resemblance to some suzani work I've seen

We all accept that motifs are mobile to a certain degree, and likely have migrated along trade routes as weavers copied something they saw and liked, or even relocated themselves along the route(s), yes ?

Regards
Chuck

[Filiberto Boncompagni]

Hi Wendel,

Same here...

To reiterate the reiteration :)

Years ago I bought two (new) suzanis and I posted them here on Turkotek.

I was told by somebody (cannott retrace his post or email but I think I remember it was Alex Wolfson) that this one was a copy of an ottoman embroidery.

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

Wich turned out to be correct because a few years later I found this 'trousers panel', 1850-1870 Turkish embroidery on the V&A Museum website:


https://collections.vam.ac.u k/item/O51357/trouser-panel-unknown/


http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/Trousers_panel_V_A.j pg

Migration of design, again.

Regards,

Filiberto

[Filiberto Boncompagni]

A few speculations...

In the example I presented above, apparently the new embroidery is a copy of the old Ottoman one.

What about the two of them copying an older model? And from where this older model was?

The oldest surviving suzanis are from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, but it seems likely that they were in use long before that. Writing at the beginning of the 15 th century, the Spanish ambassador to the court of Timur (Tamerlane) left detailed descriptions of the royal tents, with their hangings and embroideries, that agree precisely with the scenes depicted in miniature paintings of the period. (See "The Ambassador's Report," page 10.) Some of the textiles the envoy saw were surely the forerunners of the suzani, particularly the densely worked pieces from Bukhara and Shakhrisabz, some of which have much to say to the medallion carpets of the Timurid period that are associated with Herat, to the south in Afghanistan.

See more interesting notations in the article 'Splendid Suzanis' by Caroline Stone:

https://archive.aramcoworld. com/issue/200304/splendid.suzanis.htm