Steve Price

Hi People

I recently acquired this small (3'5" x 2'4") Caucasian prayer rug.



It appears to have had a major tear in the vertical direction, but it's been repaired well enough for that not to be conspicuous or very distracting. It's fairly finely woven at 130 kpsi (10 horizontal x 13 vertical), has a larger number of colors than many, and good wool. I especially like the drawing, which you can see more easily in the closeup.



I haven't seen boteh done quite this way anywhere else.

The device in the mihrab and the major border design are both often associated with Karabagh rugs, but everything else about this one says East Caucasus to me.



Regards

Steve Price

Filiberto Boncompagni

Hi Steve,

What a pretty little thing, even if your pictures are, uncharacteristically, a bit out of focus.

Schurmann attributes a similar prayer rug to Karabagh (actually, “Chan-Karabagh”, see Schurmann , Caucasian Rugs, plate 37) then says “the fine weave… probably points to Saliani”.
Now, he put Saliani in the Baku district. More precisely Saliani is north of Lenkoran in the Jevat District at the edge of the Moghan steppe…. Clear, no? What Schurmann actually says is: “it’s a Karabagh, wait, probably not, it’s East Caucasian”.

Could you post a close-up of one of the ends? Or you could send me the rug for a free expertise. I’ll send it back once the actual global financial crisis is over.
Provided I have any money left.

Regards,

Filiberto

Steve Price

Hi Filiberto

Actually, I didn't take those photos, they were sent to me by the seller. Here's the rug after a bit of sharpening in Photoshop:



Here's a closer look at the end - a flat plainweave.



I'll try to find time to get a better photo of the end this evening.

Regards

Steve Price

James Blanchard

Hi Steve,

That is a lovely little rug! Congratulations.

My immediate reaction, based on design and palette, was "Genje". The bold "medachyl" (trefoil) guard borders and the white ground border seem to be consistent with a "Genje" attribution, as do the botehs. But I think this seems quite fine for a Genje. Do you know if the rug has wool or cotton wefts?

James

Richard Larkin

Hi Steve,

My, what a sweet little rug that is. I'm a sucker for boteh of many configurations, and those are great.

Is it possibly single-wefted? So far, I've seen it only on my not so good monitor in the office, and Filiberto says the shots aren't so well-focused anyway; but the look at the back seems to have that di9stinctive single-wefted appearance. What do you say?

However many wefts it has, you've latched onto a winner. Congrats!

Rich Larkin

James_Allen

Here is a similar sized prayer rug in a similar design dated 1290. I am fairly certain this rug is an Anatolian Melas and not a Caucasian Karabagh. It is part of my personal collection. I am showing it because I think there is a very strong two way linkage between many Anatolian and Caucasian rug designs. I am also enclosing a single picture of a similar Melas prayer rug in a Turkish museum dated to the early 19th century.

Jim Allen

Steve Price

Hi Rich

Single wefted it is. The selvages are sort of very pale olive color, and don't look original to me. The foundation is all wool.

Hi Jim

Thanks for adding those. They are beautiful rugs. I still lean toward a Caucasian attribution for mine, although attributions don't matter to me as much as they once did.

Hi Filiberto

Here's a direct scan of part of the lower end. The end looks reddish in the image. It isn't, in real life.



Regards

Steve Price

Joel Greifinger

Hi Steve and all,

Add my voice into the chorus. The colors and drawing look great; I can only imagine what they are like 'in the wool'. Sign me up for the traveling exhibition after Filiberto (though I'm not sure I will be in any condition to take delivery if this doesn't arrive till we've come through the global financial crisis).

Here are scans of the rug Filiberto referenced in Schurmann from Saliani:



and here's one with some distinctive botehs and a similar motif below the mihrab that Azadi attributes a bit northwest of Saliani, up the Kura River in the Kyudamir district of Shirvan:



this one has two and sometimes four ivory wefts.

Joel

Filiberto Boncompagni

Single-wefted, huh? Quite uncommon. I do have two single-wefted rugs, both from Daghestan.
There’s a theory that most of single-wefted rugs in Eastern Caucasus were woven by Lesghis… Which cold be true at least for one of my pieces although attributions don't matter to me as much as they once did too.
Thanks to Joel for the scan. For some technically mysterious reasons my scanner doesn’t work on this computer under the Windows XP flavour so I have to reboot it in Win 2000. That’s why I am rather scan-reticent lately.

Regards,

Filiberto

Steve Price

Hi Filiberto

Your scanner issue sounds like a driver problem Try going to the scanner manufacturer's website and downloading the latest drivers for your scanner.

Regards

Steve Price

Filiberto Boncompagni

I wish it was so simple, Steve.

Rich Larkin

Hi Steve,

Single wefting in a rug like this, as Filiberto notes, is unusual. From the look of it, there seems to be nothing else about it, including the general feel, that would suggest it is anything other than Eastern Caucasian. Would you agree with that? Of course, some of the incidental ornament (for example, the eight petaled flowers filling the prayer niche element) can be found more widely.

I know you're a busy guy, but feel free to put up some better shots of the back.

Rich Larkin

Steve Price

Hi Rich

I'll try to find time to scan the back this evening. It looks mighty East Caucasian to me.

Regards

Steve Price

Horst Nitz

Hi Steve,

congratulations to that pretty one. The repair must have cost a bob or two if done in the US. A close-up of it would be interesting.

As far as provenance is concerned, it seems to be the typical untypical rug, Shirvan, Karabagh, Talish, its all in it. Decades ago one would probably have called it South-Shirvan. Pile seems longer then on most rugs from the Shirvan proper area.

James Allen's rug is not Karabagh and neither it is Melas, but North Daghestan / Lesghistan most probably. The Jewish Ark under the gable in its specific design refers to that area and the period of the Muridian Wars. The Jewish Ark appears only sporadically on Turkish rugs, and if it does, in quite a different form, i.e. plate 44 in Brüggemann & Böhmer. Otherwise I agree with you, James, on the sometimes striking parallel between some Caucasian and especially West-Turkish rugs.

Horst

p.s. Steve, the kelim end shown suggests some warp offset - this is usually achieved by two weft shots, one streight, one senious. The weave is very fine and might be difficult to assess, but would you mind taking another look?

Steve Price

Hi All

I must have been having a Senior Moment yesterday when I said the rug is single-wefted. It isn't.



Sorry for the confusion.

Hi Horst

The repair was done before I acquired the rug. I have no idea when, by whom, or at what cost.



The repair shows up in the photo as a discoloration extending irregularly from the bottom on up through the mihrab. In life, it's very inconspicuous from the front, and not terribly conspicuous except in a few places from the back.

Regards

Steve Price

Filiberto Boncompagni

Hi Horst,
Well, the back of that rug looks more Kazak/Gandja/Karabagh to me.

Anyway, look at Bennett’s plate 108.



The design is almost identical, borders included.


As you can see it’s in the Karabagh section of the book but have a look also at the test on the side…
(It’s a photo, not a scan, sorry but it was quicker that way)

Plate 109 is the other variation known (to me at least) of Steve's rug design, with the "hourglass" motif instead of the boteh.

Regards,

Filiberto

Jim Allen

Thank you very much for pointing out my attribution mistake. I was interested to hear you say that the Ark of the Covenant appears in Turkish rugs and especially in my little prayer rug. I certainly appreciate the great depth of your study and appreciate your sharing this with us. Jim Allen

Horst Nitz

Hello Filiberto,

plate 109 as from Karabagh or Saliani areas is all right with me, but I have some doubts about 108. The Ark is drawn detailled and precise and therefore perhaps attributable nearer to where it all happened, i.e. Imam Shamil, Muridian Wars etc. This is supported by colours and structure I would say: the splendid white highland wool so typical for North Daghestan and Lesghistan that takes dye so well and gives the rug a very vibrant expression; the emerald green and saffron yellow, which Schürmann regards as typical for Lesghistan, the border also makes frequent appearance up north, several examples in the Leshistan section. Clustering of these criteria makes it coming from the north-east for me more likely.

Best wishes,

Horst

p.s. What do you mean with the 'Test' you are referring to?

Steve Price

Hi People

I finally found time to take some photos of the rug. The colors on these photos are reasonably accurate on my monitor.

First, the whole rug:



Closeups of the two places on the front where the repair is most conspicuous:





Finally, the repair as seen on the back:



Regards

Steve Price

Filiberto Boncompagni

That's a typo, sorry. I mean TEXT: read Bennett's comment on the right.

Horst Nitz

Hi Steve,

the lustre of it is very nice and speaks for the good quality wool. Or did it get silicone injection ? I could live with it either case. It must have got butchered with a bread knife or sorts at some time - in a matrimonial strife? It is quite astonishing how every now and then one comes across a rug that is torn quite severly, sometimes whole length or laterally. Could this be a new research topic: the psychology of rug maltreatment.

Filiberto, over to your texst. Bennett is right I think in saying that the attribution is somewhat speculative. It is what we are doing here quite regularly, speculating on a fairly educated level. Bennett has done it before, Doris Eder (German original of the book) has set the tune. Scientific criteria are seldom met in the rug world. I try my best, but admittedly, I am not always successful too. For instance, I left those gun-metal coloured wefts out of the assessment of James' rug because I could not integrate them. This might be a mistake.

Did you consider those when you were saying the back to you looks Gandja, Kazak, Karabagh - its quite a wide area. isn't it?

Horst

Steve Price

Hi Horst

The wool is excellent, and with very little wear.

Here's the rug's history: Two people disputed the ownership of the rug, took the matter to a wise judge named Solomon. Thinking that the rightful owner would never allow it to actually happen, the judge said he would cut the rug in half and give half of it to each of them. His executioner began cutting it up the middle with his sword. Neither party begged him to stop. So, Solomon had his tailor repair the tear and kept the rug for himself.

Just being able to tell this story to friends and collectors is worth more than what I paid for the rug.

Regards

Steve Price

Horst Nitz

Hi Steve,

good wool, good yarn! Strange only that Bartimaeus didn't slip anything about that episode, he worked for Solomon - as a djin - and usually can't keep his gob shut (Jonathan Stroud: The Bartimaeus Trilogy -absolutely hilarious).

Horst

Filiberto Boncompagni

Hi Horst,
I don’t understand the “gun-metal coloured wefts” part (perhaps for “gun-metal” you mean the color of the cartridges?) but, yes, exactly, I consider the reddish weft as being used mostly in the areas I mentioned - in short, more “West Caucasian” than “East Caucasian”, that is.
Regards,

Filiberto

Horst Nitz

Hi Filiberto and all,

gun metal = bronze. I did not know how it is spelled at first. Red or dark blue could be Kazak, but the design speaks against it; reddish or brown could be Karabagh according to Schürmann, but wefts are not red and the design speaks partly against it.

I have calculated and adopted the date to our calender: 1880. The Murid Wars had been over for 25 years at that time and this may explain the design change in the Ark with a tendency to something more decorative than what was religiously connotated originally. In the Azadi, kerimov and Zollinger book the Ark continous on rugs from the Daghestan and neighbourhood areas until the end of the century and than ceases. Occurances outside the Daghestan, Lesghistan, Kuba and Shirvan areas have always been infrequent, is my impression.

Horst

Jim Allen

The preceding few exchanges highlight one of the main impediments to our discussions. Monitors and video cards vary quite a bit and such variations make visual comparisons between monitors highly speculative. My point is; the wefts of my diminutive prayer rug are decidedly red. The wool is quiet white for unbleached wool and its colors include a good yellow and an attractive green. The border is what caused me to attribute it to Melas in the first place. Horst says that he is familiar with this border from the Lesghistan area and I have to yield to him on this point as I am unfamiliar with it.

One question I would like to raise in this thread, as it has some general relevance, is what reason do you think weavers made such small prayer rugs. I have taken a real interest in such diminutive pieces and have come to believe that they are far more likely to have been made by a weaver for personal use. Larger more formalized examples were expensive to produce and were thus too valuable, as a medium of exchange, to keep.

Jim Allen

Steve Price

Hi Jim

The exotic cultures of the orient and Islam were fashionable in the west in the 19th century. My guess is that prayer design rugs were woven in many sizes to feed the market this fashion created. My rug, although smaller than most, is big enough for someone to kneel on in prayer. But, I hasten to add, there is no evidence in terms of wear or staining to suggest that it was used that way.

Regards

Steve Price

Filiberto Boncompagni

About this border:



Peter F. Stone (Tribal & Village Rugs – The Definitive Guide to Design, Pattern & Motif) defines it as “Floral Meander. A very common major and minor border in Caucasian rugs” (see Karabagh Borders, page 146, C-41).

Rich Larkin

Hi Folks,

I would like to pose a question to you Caucas-o-philes about the utility and accuracy of the standard nomenclature for this group of rugs. My period of intense interest in the oriental rug hobby was in the period of the 60’s to the 80’s, when a set of descriptive terms was in wide use that might broadly be called the Schurmann vocabulary. About the time my intense interest was waning, Richard Wright was weighing into the field with research from nineteenth century Russian documents that seemed to have little in common with the accepted nomenclature, and perhaps the prevailing wisdom about what the rugs were all about as well. It seemed to me that he was changing the accepted knowledge about the group radically.

I didn’t stay with the program closely enough to discern how all this played out among aficionados. I know that Ian Bennett published a well read book on the subject, though I’m not familiar with it. I know also that Kerimov and other Russian and vicinity scholars and commentators have published material that provided a somewhat different slant on the Caucasian oeuvre, but I’m not especially familiar with that either.

My own take on the whole situation before Wright’s publications was that the standard criteria for Caucasian attribution were very fuzzy at the edges, and that many of the attributions were applied arbitrarily. My question to you folks is, am I right about what was happening through the period mentioned; and do you think the result of all of it changed the view of Caucasian rugs fundamentally?

Any comments will be appreciated.

Rich Larkin

P. S.: It's a relief to finally get some input about some rugs that aren't you know what!.

Filiberto Boncompagni

You are absolutely right, Rich.

Personally, after having read Wright’s research on the subject I found myself compelled into a sort of “nomenclature agnosticism”.

However, even if the traditional, Schurmann-based vocabulary was flawed, it’s still useful as a quick way to describe a certain type of design. Saying, for example, Sewan Kazak or Lesghi Star conjures unequivocally two particular kind of Caucasian rugs.
Fact is that I do not believe anymore that the first was necessarily woven near the Sewan lake, nor that the second was woven by Lesghi people.

Ergo, when presented with a Caucasian rug I use first the layout (field design and borders) to go for the “traditional” attribution, then I have a look at the clues offered by its structure. When structure conflicts with the supposed geographical attribution of traditional nomenclature, I go for the structure. Unfortunately the latter gives only VERY broad indications.

Years ago John Howe posted this graphic from a book Wright wrote in 1980, "Rugs and Flatweaves of the Transcaucasus”:



I try to keep this in mind when doing attributions. And try to precede the attribution with uncommitted words such as “probably” or “perhaps”.

Regards,

Filiberto

James Blanchard

Hi Filiberto,

Thanks for sharing that schematic from Wright. I found it interesting that part of his classification scheme includes the length of pile. I had generally associated East Caucasian rugs with short-clipped pile, which was part of the reason that I don't quickly associate Steve's prayer rug with that group. For me, it doesn't neatly fit in any specific group, but something about the design and palette still says "Genje" to me. Mind you, Bennett has suggested that "Genje" is a bit of a catch-all attribution, so perhaps it doesn't have much meaning in this case.

James

Rich Larkin

Hi Filiberto,

What an answer! You expressed my sentiments exactly. I also became a "nomenclature agnostic" after reading Wright's stuff. I think I'm still one, though, as you say, many of the standard classifying terms work very well.

Having regard to Wright's chart, I wonder whether you find that it is in accord with your own notions. For example, if I were looking to put close cousins together, I would be more likely to put the Moghan type next to the Talish, as I consider the heft and texture of the two to be somewhat similar. In the meantime, I have always considered Derbent to be a sort of mongrel, catch-all term for lesser grade Caucasians. Etc. Commenting on James's remark, Gendje always signified to me a coarser Kazak type, often of lesser overall quality, though individual ones could have great, bold color and design. I also realize that quite different rugs show up at auctions and the like with the label, Gendje, but I don't really know what is the basis of the atttribution. Except for the obvious, one might say stereotyped, examples, I find the group of Caucasian rugs confusing if one must attach the "correct" label to them.

I do see that as you go clockwise around Wright's chart, you seem to move from one type to a similar type, for the most part.

If I recall the timing, this chart would seem to predate Wright's commentary on the Sbornik Materialov (don't hold me to that spelling), which was, I think, his first grenade tossed into the middle of Caucasia.

Thanks for the response.

Rich Larkin

James Blanchard

Hi all,

Just a few more scraps from Ian Bennett's book....

Most Gendje have an all wool foundation, but only a small proportion are finely woven (Bennett mentions that only 1 of 22 in his experience had >100 kpsi).

Here are a couple of examples that have kindred design elements to Steve's. Still, I tend to agree that the attribution for Steve's rug seems far from certain, and that it probably doesn't matter too much. It's a lovely little rug.

James

Similar botehs....



Similar main border....

Rich Larkin

Hi all,

The "Richard E. Wright" link here on TurkoTek, especially the "tale of two literatures" item, is required reading for anyone interested in the history of Caucasian rugs.

Rich Larkin

Filiberto Boncompagni

Hi Rich, James,

Wright’s chart is rather vague so, in the attribution game, it’s better to check also Wright’s article on M.D. Isaev bearing in mind that it describes accurately the carpet-making in the early Soviet period when, for example ” the conversion under government sponsorship of the technics of pile rug construction in western Azerbaijan and in Armenia from traditional coarse weave to the finer more supple weave of eastern Azerbaijan” took place…A matter that shouldn’t concern us when dealing with pre-Soviet production.

But the question is: how Isaev’s description can reflect also the pre-Soviet period?

We know that the production of knotted carpet in Caucasia experienced a real boom around the third quarter of the 19th century, or perhaps a bit earlier but anyway before the Imperial Russia’s kustar movement, which - for Caucasian rugs - started at the end of 19th.
Carpet-making was a cottage industry but conducted in a traditional way if it’s true what Wright says, i.e. even “The kustar programme did not affect traditional production arrangements. There were no workshops and weaving took place at home…
…
Some artistic intrusion did occur… six thousand motifs were collected and numerous patterns were distributed in the form of black and white lithographs”
But the patterns were traditional, and the real mass/workshop production started only during Soviet time.
Even at the time when Isaev conducted its survey “the activity was still predominately one of the villages and undertaken at home rather than in artels”

So I think it is safe to assume that Isaev’s work should be useful to classify also the previous rug production at least from the last quarter of 19th until WWI - the “boom” years – because THAT was already the tradition from the Soviet era point of view.

James, as for Genje (Gendje, Gandja and so on) rugs, I follow Bennett’s criterion:
Structure, like Kazaks.
Design: small polychromatic ornaments (and sometimes coarse) instead of Kazaks’ large bold medallions.
Colors: more colorful, with light and bright shades, than the rest of South Caucasian rugs.
Regards,

Filiberto

Horst Nitz

Hi Steve, Jim


(Steve): "...exotic cultures of the orient and Islam were fashionable in the west in the 19th century. My guess is that prayer design rugs were woven in many sizes to feed the market this fashion created."

Although this is no daubt so it does not acoount for the great number of (old) prayer rugs and kelims one still encounters in the countries of origin. Most rugs of this format are used as a hanging and function as a token of ones personal relation to God; they create a spiritual focus in everyday life and may coushion the guilty conscience of the lazy who does not get round to do his obligatory prayers. The Murid wars in the Daghestan areas probably inspired an additional function: to discriminate. The nearly half a century long war period put an enormous strain on the population and lead to an unexperienced polarization. The Jews in the area saw themselves between the fronts and eighter had to escape behind the Russian lines (growth of Baku) or arrange themselves with Imam Shamil and his Murid fighters. The Ark under the gable of those prayer rugs envokes memory of a similar episode in the Old Testament: we are on your side and therefore to be spared. An appropriate signal to the Murid fighters who were policing the mountain villages, looking for "traitors" parallel to fund raising and were entering at will.

Horst