TWO BAGS

Here are two bags I suppose to be anatolian (if somebody could confirm or infirm this). Those two bags are utilitarian weavings made for storing or transporting goods or objects (woven objects for ex.). The technic is weft faced plain weave plus decorated motives executed with the soumak technic. In the two bags warps are made of a coarse thread, natural, without dying that seems to be camel hair (I am not sure of this). Colours : blue, pinks, brown, pale red. May be madder dyes because there is no running of the reds. The whites are coton made.
The two bags share the same motive. This motive is well spread in diferent weaving areas, from the caucasus to the baluch territories. I do not know the name of this motive and I am looking for informations about it. I would prepare a salon about it.

For me the appreciation of those two bags is the folowing :

The first one,










despite its coarser weaving and its poor aspect is better drawn than the second. in this first bag we can see a better feeling of the weaver for the motive than in the second.












In this latter the design is finer and better done than in the first but I do not feel the same "soul" in it. The drawing seems to me more shabby, more skimpy, without the dynamic of the first one. The lack of separation between the motives is also certainly responsible of a certain lack of space and produce a crowdy effect.
The blue ground is also directly connected to the "guls" (they are also more compact, more rounded in shape), that increase the lack of space around the decorative motives.

I suppose the first one is older than the second, this could explain the difference in the "soul" of the design.

I let them to the appreciation of the Turkotek community.

Meilleures salutations à tous

Louis Dubreuil

Hi Louis,

The technique seemed more brocaded, not soumak…
So I looked around and I found this on my HD.



It was on Marla Mallett’s website a few years ago. Marla’s description was:
Malatya brocade pillow
Eastern Turkey. Wool, with white cotton
Regards,

Filiberto

Dear Mr. Louis Dubreuil,

from the images of the two pieces i am not at all sure that the first is older than the second. very often pieces with good natural dyes look "fresher" than pieces made with poor quality synthetic dyes.

sincerely

richard farber

Bonjour à tous

I have got a very little succes with my two bags. 148 viewers but very few comments.
Maybe the design is too poor for getting the attention of "rugologists".
If I have any interest in those bags in particular and in this type of object in general, it is for two reasons.
First I find wonderful that for a daily use as banal as transporting straw or grain or cloth, peoples take the pain to make the effort of making those bags with a lot of taste and soul. But when we think to the signification of the food or of the clothing in traditionnal societies it becomes normal that all the things that participate to the food and clothing production could be made by a process that includes over-functional meanings as apotropaïc or protective or symbolic drawings. Our societies have (apparently) lost thoses practices (but we can question us about the incredible importance of "trade marks" in the customers' habits). The ethnical dimension is a part of my interest in thoses weavings, and I think that functional objects can be more "genuine" and no polluted by commercial practices. This is certainly why I prefere the first bag that has obviously been (hardly) used and just made for this use, to the second, that is quite new and unsused and that can be supposed to have been made just for trade.

The second reason, and I have made an allusion about that in my first post, is the design used. As "rugologists" each of us know the name of well known and well studied motives as "memling gul", "tauk nuska gul", "tchemtche gul" and so on. But there are numerous other motives that have not any name for calling them or talking about them. The motive used in those bags is apparently one of those "without name " motives. But it is not the "without name motive" I talk about in a past salon about berber rugs. This octogonal shape with inward oriented square hooks (I would prefer just one word to call it !) is found from the Anatolia (in the west) to the balluch territories (in the east), with many exemples between these two ends (Caucasus, Talish, Shirvan, Luristan...). Meanwhile it is unknown in the turkmen vocabulary. That is for me a great mystery. I think it would be a good subject for a collective research in order to make a salon "à plusieurs voix" on this subject.

Voilà, c'est tout pour ce soir.

Amicalement

Louis