Two Striped Juvals
What we have here are two faintly similar striped chuvals - one an Ersari,
the other a Tekke.
The first should be familiar to those of you who remember the
discussion here about elaborate, expressive side and end borders. The second was
put up briefly as an example of fugitive reds.
I bought the Ersari when I
was under the impression that striped chuvals were rare. Since then at a meeting
of the Chicago Rug Society where Erik Risman brought his Ersari pieces I learned
that our little group owned at least nine examples.
The Tekke was an eBay
purchase, inexpensive and deservedly so. Still, it covers a storage box with
authority.
Anecdotally, there is a story that striped chuvals like the
Tekke were made that way to help them stay stacked when piled on top of each
other. The ridges of pile would provide traction. If form does indeed follow
function, it could be argued that the Tekke (or its ancient progenitors) was the
prototype for the Ersari since the stripes on the Ersari serve no useful
purpose.
Cordially,
-Jerry-
Stripes
Jerry,
Many, many years ago I had a chance to buy a Tekke white ground
striped chuval face.
At the time, I was not knowledgeable enough to know the
value of such a piece.
My personal theory is that the Tekke wove both white
and red ground chuvals and that the reason for the difference was for the owners
to be able to differentiate them from each other in the near-dark conditions
common in pre-electric-light days. Shepherds needed to be up before dawn and
came in after dark. They needed to know which chuval held the racketball gear
and which held the TV remote. A quick glance, even in near-darkness would allow
them to discern the difference.
As for value, if you keep them for another
hundred years, you could probably recoup your investment!
Patrick
Weiler
Function is irrelevant
Jerry,
Could it be that the Ersari piece is a pile version of a
flatweave and therefore it was not simply a version of the ridged-type
Tekke?
Is it equally likely that the Tekke pile section chuvals are merely a
later pile version of a flatweave?
And the apocryphal assertion that the pile
sections were designed to keep the chuvals from slipping is not the case at
all?
Has anyone actually filled up a bunch of these pile versus flatweave
chuvals to see if this speculation is actually correct?
I would volunteer,
but I do not have any of either.
Helpfully,
Patrick
Weiler
Oh, and which one do YOU like best?