Chuck Wagner

Hi all,

I have two questions about the bag (that some genius has sliced in half at the midpoint) pictured below. Fineness is relatively high at 18 warps/inch H by about 24 wraps/inch V = about 432 design points per square inch. Warps are ivory handspun wool, selvage and finishes are goat hair. Dimensions are 29 inches wide by 41 inches long.

Each side is built up at the edge with three wide wrapped warp cords. After folding over, the goat hair selvage is binds the sides together on the outermost wide cord.

Questions:

1) Baluch, or Timuri (my thought), or something else ?

2) Does anyone have any specific thoughts about the design elements - in particular - the nicely rendered "floral" pattern which I have personally never seen before ?

Regards
Chuck Wagner


Front:



Back:



Observe bottom pattern wraps around to back:



The "floral" pattern:



Upper closure detail (outside)



Upper closure detail (inside)

richard tomlinson

WOW !!!

a beluch that is actually atypical..... i really like it ....

i know nothing of these pieces but it looks similar to some sistan baluch grainbags....

nice find !!!!!

best
richard

Chuck Wagner

Hi Richard,

Yes - I'm quite pleased with it, and as I mentioned earlier- a little perplexed.

I was hoping that somewhere out there in Baluchotekistan, I might be able to gain some insight (or an analog) on the rosette pattern. But apparently the indiginites are all on vacation, asleep, in jail, or bored stiff.

I do consider it to be atypically fine, and intersting.

Regards
Chuck Wagner

Rich Larkin

Hi Chuck,

I haven't seen one like it. Wish I had...in my closet. It's a lovely piece.

Rich Larkin

Patrick Weiler

Chuck,

Something else. It may be Afshar. This weft-substitution construction is used by both Baluch and Afshar. They also live near each other in the SE of Iran and SW of Afghanistan/western Pakistan.
I would suggest you travel there to investigate.

Patrick Weiler

Chuck Wagner

Hi Pat,

I'm all out of Claymores right now, and the barrel of the M4 burned up on the last rug collecting trip, so any travel to that region will have to wait for a restock or an outbreak of global peace.



I had briefly considered Afshar, and in fact had been leaning more towards Khorassan Kurd because I've seen similar reciprocal knot designs on Kurd work. Still, the palette is so typical of Baluch work - and missing the more common brighter reds in Afshar & Kurd work, that I'm still tilted heavily toward Baluch or Timuri.

I think the rosette pattern is a differentiator but I can find no other examples or analogs that I can use to narrow down the pedigree. I'm hoping someone will find a reference image with a similar design.

Regards
Chuck Wagner

Horst Nitz

Chuck,

besides on other rugs in a Baluch tradition (Azadi), similar rosettes occur frequently on pile rugs in the NW Iran, E Anatolia and Caucasus areas, as do other features in your kordjin. A close-up of the pattern in the bands on top and below the one with the rosettes I would find interesting. It is a beautiful piece you have and it demonstrates a long back design connection with provenaces further west.

Regards, Horst

Patrick Weiler

Horst, I agree that this style of rosette is often found in other regions and especially Varamin area weavings. If I recall, there were some Afshar around there.

Chuck,

Take a look at the ORR article by Wertime on salt bags of Afshar.
http://www.rugreview.com/6wert.htm



The first bag shows rosettes of eery similarity to yours, although in a different format.



And bag number three shows, at the top, the same curious weft-substitution pattern as your bag shows in the rows above and below the main rosette pattern.
This is certainly not to say that the type of construction and the style of decoration were not shared by both Afshar and Baluch in that region. It is just that a lot of so-called Baluch flatweaves from that area were Afshar.
I will check to see if there are other weavings incorporating that particular bow-tie pattern.

Patrick Weiler

Marla Mallett

In the marketplace just about all weft-substitution pieces from the Sirjan or Jabal-e-Barez areas south of Kirman tend to be labeled Afshar, though many were apparently woven by Baluch. Chuck's piece, however, with its widely spaced pattern bands and dominant natural browns would not, I think, be mistaken for Afshar by most, nor would it normally be thought to come from this area. To me, this fits comfortably with Baluch pieces from farther east or northeast of Jabal-e-Barez--areas toward Siestan, Khorassan, and Helmand.

Since weft-substitution weaves are quite specialized and their use limited, we can eliminate a great many areas from consideration. Weft-substitution weaving has been virtually unknown in the Caucasus and Turkey, so those areas can be ruled out. Though the structure appears in the Veramin area (presumably due to the presence of Afshars), and also in some Bakhtiari work, Chuck's piece would only appear to fit well into the body of Baluch production of eastern Iran and southwestern Afghanistan. It does not have either the character or design vocabulary of most Pakistani Baluch weft-substitution work, nor does it have the distinctive character of well-known Afghani Hazzara weft-substitution work.

Best,
Marla

Horst Nitz

Marla, your post reads as if you felt the need to argue against a Turkish or Caucasian attribution of Chucks kordjin. Nobody made such an attribution. However, I did suggest that some design elements may be indicative of a west-to-east migration of pattern or people at an earlier time. You probably are aware of one of the theories on the origin of the Baluch people suggesting a Gilan neighbourhood in NW Iran (Ferdauzi as cited by Azadi). There they would have had a share in the common design pool.

Regards, Horst

Marla Mallett

Because of stringent technical and structural limitations, weft-substitution designing is pretty much a world unto itself--with its own design vocabulary and only occasional erratic borrowings from works in other textile media. Instead, less restrictive structures, especially knotted pile, have frequently borrowed and adapted bits and pieces of weft-substitution and warp-substitution designs. The flow of design influence is, of necessity, from restrictive techniques to less restrictive techniques.

To find equivalent kinds of pattern articulation, we must look all the way to Tunesian/Algerian/Moroccan Berber weft-substitution weaving, not because there is a direct connection between these groups and those in Iran/Afghanistan/Pakistan, but because of the ways that technical factors influence designing. Though the range of motifs is expanded, the same technical and structural limitations apply.

Since eight-pointed stars are ubiquitous throughout West Asian weaving, it seems that they are of limited use in drawing conclusions about design influence. They are articulated in one kind of way in overlay-underlay brocading, other ways in weft-substitution, and a whole variety of still more ways in soumak. Virtually all of these variations have been copied in knotted pile by peasant weavers.

Marla

Chuck Wagner

Hi Horst, al,

Here are some detail shots as requested, and a question for Marla:

Is there any point in trying to classify this between Baluch and Timuri work ?

The palette put my attribution into the Baluch realm; it's pretty typical for pieces the north & central Afghan/Persian borderland. But it's quite finely rendered work, and that's why I'm wondering.


Note the three thin red-blue and/or maroon/blue alternating stripes:




Two thin alternating stripes here:




The reciprocal device (which I have seen on pieces attributed to Khorassan Kurds):




The pattern at the top and bottom (rear) of the bagface:




This last one shows the built up cords at the sides where the selvage is applied:


Regards,
Chuck Wagner

Marla Mallett

Chuck,

Probably someone can separate Baluch and Timuri work but I can't. The motifs you have shown are used widely through all the areas where weft-substitution work has been done. So regional differences have more to do with materials, palette, and format.

Marla

Horst Nitz

Hi Chuck and al,

the bands made up from what you call the ‘reciprocal device’ are an exquisite arrangement of a significant stand-alone form as well as a favoured border motif on textiles in East Anatolia, NW Iran and expatriates, the rhombus with attached antithetic brackets (‘double kotchak’). Here it features in a kelim from the Iran/Iraq/Turkey borderlands:








and in two Shahsevan textiles:













A similar parallel can be drawn for your rosettes within a rhombus. Very abbreviated, if you go with Erdmann, than the design in your kordjin has probably been bestowed on the Baluch by some Turkoman who have pulled it from the mystic yurt at some unknown place in Central Asia. If you go with me, the design is part of the Sassanid era pool and has been with the Baluch and has been preserved by them ever since their expatriation from the west (see earlier post). Occasionally this shows up on a piece as excellent as yours.

Regards, Horst

Joel Greifinger

Hi Chuck,

In keeping with your observation, here's a version of the device that's in the negative space. This is a detail from a Kordi chuval that I posted yesterday to the Flatwoven Wallhangings - Kurdish? Anatolian? thread.



It's also a common design on brocaded bags, covers and rugs made by Yuruks from southern Anatolia:



Joel Greifinger

Chuck Wagner

Hi Joel,

Nice work on the bag. I have a Kurdish grain bag with similar features; I'll see if I can dig up (i.e. find...) the images.

Here is an image from Hull & Luczyc-Wyhowska's "Kilim" that illustrates why I was on the Khorassan Kurd track - similar but not precisely the same:



...and, as previously mentioned, the paette is all wrong.

Similarly, this piece (this piece, and the next two, are on the market - so, no value comments please) is also attributed to Khorassan or Quchan Kurds - the reciprocal design is almost identical but again, palette is different:



The next two are attributed to unspecified Baluch weavers. The first has another replication of the reciprocal design, and the design along the top and bottom of my bag. The plot thickens:



And this one has the minor PacMan element:



So finally, after several evenings of digging, I found this image in Jenny Housego's Tribal Rugs:



which also contains both the reciprocal and end designs, and is attributed to Baluch of east Iran.

So, I'm satisfied, Baluch it is. But as Marla pointed out - and is evident from the images in this thread - these designs (and their close relatives) are used broadly throughout the region.

That said, I have yet to see another example of the rosette panel, which I find particularly attractive.

Regards
Chuck Wagner

Filiberto Boncompagni

Hi folks,

We discussed similar pieces some time ago. Googling for Baluch flat-weaves I discovered with a bit of shame that the discussion was indeed archived (which I had forgot, hence the shame).
To refresh your memory as well as mine:

http://www.turkotek.com/misc_00064/baluch_kilim.htm

Cheers,

Filiberto

Joel Greifinger

Hi Chuck,

But to complicate matters, here is a bag that was sold by a celebrity dealer (who shall remain unnamed ) as Afshar.



Joel Greifinger

Joel Greifinger

Hi Chuck,

Here are two other variants, both from Walter Powischer’s massive Beludj volume. He labels the first Baluch from Khorassan, the second Afshar from Kerman:





Joel Greifinger

Chuck Wagner

Hi Joel,

Without any info beyond the images, I would have pegged neither as Baluch.

Several of the secondary design elements in the first piece just look atypical of Baluch work. Maybe I'm showing ignorance by saying so, but it looks like Khorassan Kurd work to me.

The diamond motifs on the second piece, along with the dominant red and very finely detailed work, are an Afshar marker for me - I've seen several similar pieces, all attributed to Afshar by their owners.

Thanks for clearing all this up...

Regards
Chuck Wagner

Joel Greifinger

Hi Chuck,

The dealer who sold this one described it as Khorassan Kurd (or perhaps Khorassan Afshar):





Glad we settled that one.

Joel Greifinger

Chuck Wagner

Joel,

I like that bag. Is the back plain, or decorative.

All cleared up now ???



....nah, not yet.

Cheers
Chuck Wagner

Joel Greifinger

Hi Chuck,

Here's the only picture of the back I've got, complete with sock. Unfortunately, I don't own the bag (or the sock).



Joel Greifinger