MAD rug (?) of unknown format. Don't mind the infestation.....

[aarongoldstein Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close aarongoldstein]

Hello all,

I was recently visiting with my partner's family friend, a fellow architect. We were touring a cottage he designed when I spotted some stacked rugs and asked to unfold them. They had come from his great-grandfather's house in Illinois, which was built around 1880. Doesn't date the rugs, but my gut said 1875-1900.

The first two were from the Caucusus - a Kuba and a Fachralo Kazak. The star of the show was this one, which appears to be a Middle Amu Darya carpet. But what about the format? Similar compositionally to a main carpet, but miniaturized, and nearly square in format. Between the Black Desert and the Red" has a fairly good analog, albeit with a slightly different arrangement of the minor guls and other secondary ornaments. The Wiedersperg example is in typical main carpet format.

Regarding the infestation - my textile conservator partner and I gasped in horror - in addition to being saturated with moth debris, there were live moths and larvae crawling all over the rug. We immediately quarantined the rug from the others and gave our friend a comprehensive treatment plan. There are a few through-holes and significant areas of pile loss, but it's still quite a strong rug, I think, and structurally sound.

Any insights would be much appreciated! Apologies for the lack of close-ups or pictures of the back - we went straight into cleaning mode once the thing was on the floor.

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

Very interesting story! It sounds like the rug needs a professional cleaning and thank goodness you caught it. I’d say by the amount of borders it’s a fair guess on my part that it’s from 1930-50 era. I am curious what others will say that have more extensive knowledge on these rugs.

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

Hi Aaron and welcome to Turkotek,

The presence of the gul-e-badam (almond blossom) minor borders (those reciprocal paisley-like motifs) is a pretty clear indicator that this piece is from Afghanistan, and the jagged tree-like motifs in the major guls are very typical of the region around Andkhoy and Daulatabad in Faryab province, and of the Suleiman/Sulayman tribe in particular, which is an Ersari subgroup settled widely in northern Afganistan and Turkmenistan.

Regards
Chuck Wagner.

[Guest Close Guest]

Many thanks, Joe and Chuck. I posted once before on here about my MAD chuval, but have been a reader ever since, so thanks for the welcome

It had the Afghan/Ersari look about it as soon as I saw it, but it's great, Chuck, that you can pinpoint it based on the güls and border designs. Any idea about age?

And what was this rug for? It makes me think of small-format dowry rugs which use the same güls and secondary ornaments as main carpets, at the same scale but fewer in number, yielding a smaller rug.

AG

[PaulSmith Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close PaulSmith]

The gul-e-badam main border says later rather than earlier, but I would say that the colors (at least) would make this significantly older than 1930. There are no synthetics that I see, and we've got two good blues here and a pale yellow (I think), the latter which I have never seen in a 20th-c. Ersari. The drawing is on the late side, though. My age guess is c.1900.

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

Aaron,

My go-to source for questions on Afghan rugs is Richard Parsons' The Carpets of Afghanistan. While re-reading his remarks on Sulayman production, I came across this image which he said was from the Kunduz region and from the 1930's. Several elements of this piece are consistent with what we see on yours, and I think adjusting the locale to Kunduz, but still Sulayman, would be appropriate. And I'm in the same ballpark with Paul on age; I would guess 1900-1930s, because the ornaments around the periphery of the major guls have a distinct Beshir look to them which I would not expect in later pieces. Ditto for the level of detail. Progressively later Suleiman work is executed in simpler form, less detail, and a definitive medium red rather than the brownish-red seen on older work. We have one that Parsons agreed is WW2-vintage with a very deep bluish-red and exceptionally high quality satiny wool not found on younger work.; see images below.

Regards
Chuck

Image from Dick Parsons' book:



Our rug:

[aarongoldstein Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close aarongoldstein]

Thanks, Paul and Chuck. Paul - the pale yellow looked like a natural dye to my eye.

Chuck - the Parsons example looks like a good analog, my instinct says later than the one in question, or a bit more simplified/rigid? Might just be a result of the more limited palette.

What do you think about the format of the rug? Is that significant at all? I didn't have a chance to measure it, but I estimate it's about 6' x 7' - nearly square.

AG

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

Aaron,

I'm not sure you can read much into the aspect ratio of a "main" rug. I think it's as much a function of the dimensions of the loom (and maybe, the room the loom is in) as anything else. Rugs like these are mostly village weavings and not the product of moving noomads where the loom would be set up and taken down numerous times , which affects the warp and weft tensions. And I don't have much more to say about age; yours is a bit less crowded, but again, that can as much be a function of patterns in a weavers head that are executed regardless of the overall available field space.

Regards
Chuck