Posted by Jerry_Silverman on 08-26-2004 08:18 PM:

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-


Posted by Patrick Weiler on 08-27-2004 01:37 AM:

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


Posted by Patrick Weiler on 09-10-2004 10:08 PM:

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?