The tale of a Yastik found in Turkey

[Joe Lawrence Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Joe Lawrence]

This is a Yastik (cushion or pillow) larger piece in the middle of the picture, from Kirsehir, Turkey. I found this a few weeks ago in Bodrum, Turkey at a flea market from a non rug seller. The seller had a couple of pieces among his antiques and while looking around in the morning, the seller hadn’t put it out yet. A few hours later we were running to catch the bus and just missed it. The flea market is next to the bus station so we went back. This time the yastik was on the table for sale. The seller knew nothing about it and to be honest, neither did I at the time other than knowing it was a Yastik.

We brought it home and after a non-wet cleaning, got a better look at it. The motif on the front highlighted by the wooden spoon is white. This was faded from purple as seen on the backside. The closeup pic shows the knots with the purple color. I have no idea of the age of this piece although it’s fair to say at least 40-50 years old. I am no expert on dyes. Does natural dye fade? I believe synthetic dye does. From my knowledge Turkey started to experiment with artificial dyes around 1850 which makes dating challenging.

[Chuck Wagner Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Chuck Wagner]

Hi Joe,

I'm no expert on Turkish goods, but I doubt that piece is old enough to fall into the early synthetic dye days, circa 1860. I would agree with your age guess. Early on, a purple dye called fuchsine was used and it would fade, in days, in bright sun. Analine dyes in general were quickly shown to be prone to fading and became disfavored. But that doesn't mean some of these aren't still used. Also, synthetic dyes that should be fade-resistant can still be ruined by doing a bad job of pH control, mordanting, or fixing.

You might want to look through this old thread one Dyes and Ethnographic Value that touches on a lot of this:
http://www.turkotek.com/misc_00004/discussion.htm

Regards,
Chuck

[Joe Lawrence Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Joe Lawrence]

Thank you Chuck