David R E Hunt

Hi Folks

I was makin' the rounds of the usual suspects when I came across this rug, cut in half, and with one piece folded up in a corner.

Interesting, it measures 6' 9" x 9' 6", and reminds of two classes of rugs which Von Bode discribes as being "progressive"; the "Tree or Shrub Carpets", and the "Vase Carpets". It also reminds in many ways, of a carpet design which seem to have proven successful in Persia, the Mughol "Millefleur" design.

I have found two published examples of rugs with similar border and field designs; one as advertised by Marcuson and Hall on the now defunct Cloudband website http://www.spongobongo.com/em/em9758.htm ,



and one in the IHBS 1974 Xmas Baluchi catalogue and accompanied by the following discription.





N0.21 BaluchiRug Mid-19th Century

This rare and lovely old piece is another example from the Andraskand Valley of Afghanistan.
As in the preceeding illustration, the dark blue field is filled with numerous asymmetrical large palmettes,
rosettes, small flowers and geometric forms in dark red,coral-red,medium blue, dark plum and ivory. An
interesting feature is the three stylized birds outlined in ivory in the upper portion of the rug. The dark red
major border contains a dark plum and blue vine and leaf meander with each leaf containing a small
red, plum, or ivory flower.. The dark plum inner and outer borders are superimposed with an unusual
'S" scroll figure while the gaurd borders reflect a dark brown and ivory reciprocal trefoil motif. The first
quality wool from which this antique rug is woven is soft and lustrous and the colors are clear and
beautiful. The remains of a blue, brown and red striped plain-woven kilim apron appears at the top
but the side borders have been reduced and the bottom apron lost as one would expect in a piece
of this age. Also, a section has been removed from the center of the piece, possibly to reduce it's
width so as to fit in a narrow space.

All Wool, double wefted, 72 senna kpsi

4' 9' X 7 '8"

Collection of Sir Edmund C. and Lady Bacon, Norfolk, England



I realize this is a rather small sampling, but a characteristic demonstrated by both of the published
examples, and which seems related to a singular characteristic demonstrated by my rug, is that both the
published rugs seem to have been reduced in size, and in turn my carpets greater dimension
is in width and not length.

It is stated in the text that the IHBS rug is "cut and shut". I know it's not a very good photo,
but some of the border resolution in the Cloudband piece suggest that the borders may have been altered.
Could these two published examples in fact be reduced fragments from a carpet of a larger format?
Is my carpet a complete example of this larger format ? The warps run vertical in my rug as shown in the photo.And the lower border is from another rug, a replacement although quite similar. This border seems complete and to have come from another carpet of similar dimensions.

The knotting of this rug is senna, 8-9 h and 10 v., open left. So the unusual end finishes are, as it turns out, wide multi cord side finishes...





































I suspect that this fragment represents less than half of this rug's original dimensions. A 2/3 ratio of width to length would place this rugs dimensions at roughly 10' x 15'. There would have been five rows of design elements ("trees and inkwells") to the original composition. Perhaps used in a Mosque or religious school? The "inkwell" motives speak of scholarship, and Bode suggests that the "tree or Shrub carpets", with their narrow borders, were designed to lie along side each other to cover a large space, such as a mosque floor. And there really do seem to be a "Thousand flowers" in the field of this rug.

Interesting that there is not one true red in this carpet, all madder shades of redbrown, with a strong Henna orange thrown in....

I invite questions or comments, of course.

Dave

Rich Larkin

Hi Dave,

You want a comment? Here's a comment. You must be stopped! At all costs! How do you find this stuff?

Here's a question. Can you say more about the so-called "inkwell" device? Also, it struck me at first glance that the added border piece might be older than the rug. What do you think of that idea?

Congrats! It's a fantastic find.

Rich Larkin

Paul Smith

David--

That rug is fabulous, and looks to me like it has serious age. The added border is very intriguing, since it seems that they really did a great job matching--what are the chances of finding a border that long with the same design details? It also makes me wonder if this was a part of an absolutely vast carpet (imagine its size if it had a more standard proportional length to that width). I am struck by the South Persian look to some of those floral elements in the field.

That you find these great pieces at the haunts of your "usual suspects" makes you the absolute god of rug hunting in my book.

Paul

Richard Larkin

Hi Dave,

Paul's point about the lining up of the attached border is well taken. Is it possible it's a reweave instead of an attachment of a border from a foreign piece?

Rich Larkin

David R E Hunt

Hi Rich,Paul

Really, there is no secret to this. Diligence is key to findin' this stuff.
After all, who could miss this?





And speaking of analog, I found one to the border in this "Madrassa" fragment, from Boucher, plate 54.







Both with a red ground, but the elements have been changed a little, and the "S" elements have been removed from the meander into the guard stripes. And this same plum color.



Boucher, Plate 54


You had some questions regarding this "inkwell" device, and if memory serves
I have heard more than one explanation for the origin of this baluch design element. I have seen them refered to as "inkwells", per the Madrassa rug under discussion; as a "pencil box", per the Boucher piece above, and as a "pen holder" per Thomas Cole's site. They strike as being variations on a similar design theme (see the morphs in the Boucher piece), which bear resemblance to everyday objects (inkwells = Clay multi-tier ink well; pencil box = fancy pencil box; and pen holder = device to hold quill pens), or could be intended to represent same said everyday objects.

This additional border is of some interest. Were a number of these rugs commossioned for a special project, or do they represent the production run of some enterprising rural weavers? At first glance the border seem to be of greater age, and more colorful to some extent, but truth be told, both colors and drawing are of inferior quality to the larger piece.I have run into this before, and crude does not equate with greater age IMHO.I guess this border could be a reweave, but it is rather crudely attached, and not a good match, to have been custom made for this rug.

I had made mention of this Madrassa rug's similarity to these progressive design rugs mentioned by Wilhelm Von Bode in his "Antique Rugs From The Near East", and thus follows;




the Madrassa rug in greyscale (just for fun : ) ,



Plate 99 fron Von Bode,



plate 100 from von Bode



plate 101 from V Bode



and followed by 102, also Von Bode.


It seems that around the same time frame as the emergence and production of the various progressive vase, tree and shrub rugs, certain weavings were eminating from the east which strike myself as being kindered, such as these



Mughal floral carpets, with quite realistic plant forms and a strong directional bent to the design (from Ware's "Official Price Guide"). Also, not the similarity in size to the madrassa carpet.Ware also makes mention of a persian vase carpet in 9' x 15' 10" dimensions.


Let's not neglect the other design impulse mentioned, the "Thousand Flowers" effect of



the Mughul "Millifleurs design" (from W B Denny's "Oriental Rugs").


For now, back to Von Bode. In concluding the chapter on progressive design, he speaks of

"A rug with a charming color scheme in the Berlin Museum, very definitely mid-18 th century, shows the connection between garden rugs and tree rugs: the field is divided up into 84 (7 x 12) square plots, which are seperated by narrow footpaths, and each of these plots contain a severely stylized tree motive: one of these motives repeats in the borders in such a manner so as to emphasize the progressive orientation of the rug (fig 106).



Von Bode 106

Is it possible that this Baluch "Tree Rug", represents a Baluch interpretation of these design impulses, eminating from these "millifleur" and vase/tree/garden carpets,



(from Azadi, "Carpets in the Baluch Tradition, plate 1),

and that our beloved baluch prayer rug, in it's many permutations, so different yet so much alike,



procedes from the application of some of the above mentioned principals to, and the interptetation of, a common model?...



(Note the camel colored ground -from W.B.Denny, Oriental rugs, colorplate 25)


Dave

Chuck Wagner

Hi Dave, Rich, Paul,

Nice catch Dave - there's more than enough left there to make an attractive and really interesting space occupier. As you noted, a crucial skill in the rug hunt is the ability to look at a heap of stuff and spot the anomaly. Well done.

I'm posting a few images of Persian pen cases, so that those who may be interested will understand what we're talking about. The first image is actually from the center of a carpet we own; it shows where the inkwells are inside these cases. The second smaller on is my proof that the thing is rendered properly - the rug was flopping around when I took the larger image and it looks crooked; I didn't spot it at the time:





The next few are of some cases in our collection - I don't have any images of the interiors, and am not currently colocated with these things:

Soft steel, with cut/filed scrollwork:








Handpainted wood:

Rich Larkin

Neato, Chuck! I like those babies.

My question about Dave's Baluch rug was to the point whether the design elements are thought actually to depict inkwells; or are they inkwells the way those things on Kazak rugs are "pinwheels"? I remember reading something on the subject (i. e., the inkwells) here on TurkoTek, but don't recall what or when.

I googled it, but only came up with Dave's recent comment.

Rich Larkin

Paul Smith

David, Rich, Chuck--

I have seen the references to pen boxes, etc., but it always struck me as odd that a group of people who seem rarely to have been literate would have anything to do with fancy pen boxes or inkwells. It seems to me that would be the sort of term applied by city-dwelling carpet sellers who acquired these carpets.

They do look lovely, though. It makes sense that city carpets might reference them.

I still deify you, David. Rugs like the ones you find would never turn up in a million years in rural Eastern Washington/North Idaho.

Paul

David R E Hunt

Hi Paul

This raises an interesting question, and one I think suggested by my photo essay regarding the tree carpets and their possible relationship to the baluch "Madrassa" (If indeed that's what it is) carpet. Is it possible that the beloved "tree of life" baluch prayer rug motive is in fact of an urban (tree/shrub carpet) origin, just as the "Quashgai" medallion is of urban origin? Is the "inkwell' or "pen holder" motive of urban origin, observed in carpets at the local Madrassa or Mosque, and repeated from memory or simple cartoon, at the loom?

Rich, I don't know if anyone can say, of the origin of the "inkwell/penbox/holder" moniker. My understanding is that the motive is extinct or no longer in use, so we might be hard pressed to find a weaver to ask. What does Stone say in his Lexicon?

Speaking of motives, anyone know what this device is intended to represent?





Dave

P.S. Thanks for the additional info Chuck...

Paul Smith

Hi David,

Well, you know that Gantzhorn would say your element is an Armenian Christian symbol of some sort...

Some might say it's an opium poppy...

Or perhaps a calculation of a Turkmen geometer...

But we know the truth...

It's a space alien, of course!


Paul

Marek Szymanowicz

Hi all...

It realy DOES look like a rocket...


marek

ich Larkin

Hi Dave,

What do you think the device consists of? Is it two mirror image elements separated by a vertical post? Is it one device on an axis? Are the octagonal rosettes at the base part of it (in which case, it's a circus wagon)? As a long time peruser of Baluch rugs, I can't say it's all that familiar.

Incidentally, can you elaborate on the topic of "madrassa" rugs? I know the term means "school," but I wasn't aware of a particular use of oversized rugs in schools, or whether this usage was known among the Baluch. Is there something on it in the literature? I don't have Col. Boucher's book, if that's where it shows up.

The more I look at this rug, the more I'm impressed. Did you have any reaction to my suggestion that the replaced bottom end could have been a reweave rather than a piece of another rug patched in?

Rich Larkin

David R E Hunt

Hi Rich

There are three sets of these devices in the fragment, located near the base of the three upper TOL motives. The rosettes you mention are just fillers. I am sure I have seen these devices before, but not sure where. Could have been on a S. Persian (Quashgai or Khamseh) weaving? Regards your other two questions, let me reiterate;

"I suspect that this fragment represents less than half of this rug's original dimensions. A 2/3 ratio of width to length would place this rugs dimensions at roughly 10' x 15'. There would have been five rows of design elements ("trees and inkwells") to the original composition. Perhaps used in a Mosque or religious school? The "inkwell" motives speak of scholarship, and Bode suggests that the "tree or Shrub carpets", with their narrow borders, were designed to lie along side each other to cover a large space, such as a mosque floor",

and,

"This additional border is of some interest. Were a number of these rugs commissioned for a special project, or do they represent the production run of some enterprising rural weavers? At first glance the border seem to be of greater age, and more colorful to some extent, but truth be told, both colors and drawing are of inferior quality to the larger piece.I have run into this before, and crude does not equate with greater age IMHO.I guess this border could be a reweave, but it is rather crudely attached, and not a good match, to have been custom made for this rug".

So in answer to your question, the term "Madrassa rug" is a term I use to refer to this baluch fragment of mine, for above mentioned reasons, and no, I don't believe the border fragment a reweave for this particular rug, but just a large patch.

Dave

Rich Larkin

Hi Dave,

Oops! I had missed one of your posts there, and didn't intend to make you reiterate. Excuse me.

I think you're on the right track, at least conceptually, in linking this kind of Baluch with the repeating tree/shrub rugs. If the type didn't follow upon such as the examples from Von Bode, it was probably based on similar ones. What I find especially interesting is the alternate repetition in your rug (as well as the Marcuson and Hall example) of the familiar Baluch ToL prayer rug motif. It looks like the later weavers picked up that particular design as the centerpiece for the smaller format, just as the well known Eagle Kazaks (Karabaghs) selected a striking motif from a broader matrix for that rug.

Rich Larkin

David R E Hunt

Hi Rich

Hey, you never know. Sometime in the not too distant future, several blue ground timuri TOL prayer rugs in distressed condition may appear on the market. To my mind, one of several buying points I of course really don't know if there is any connection between the emergence of these Mughul and Persian tree/shrub/ carpets and the "Mardassa" fragment, but in the process of doing some armchair research came across some interesting parallels and circumstances.

Turns out that the Southeastern, provincial capital of Kirmen is both possessed of an illustrious weaving history and is the supposid origin of the vase/tree/shrub carpets (V Bode differs with A.U Pope in this regard); it was at one time sacked by the Baluch.

Seems a large contingency of Baluch were forcibly removed from the southern regions of Persia to the Khorasan (or some such) in the not too distant past.

That prior to the mid 1700's, much of the present day regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan were incorporated within the Mughul empire.

Found another example of a Baluch carpet of dimensions similar to the complete "Madrassa" carpet, in the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Caroline & H. McCoy Jones Collection. The fascinating and informative tale of it's acquisition is to be found on Thomas Cole's website in the Baluch Articles section, and as published in Hali under the title "Raising The Bar - A Khan's Carpet from Chakhansur"
http://www.tcoletribalrugs.com/article12raising.html

Dave

Marek Szymanowicz

Hallo

I don't know as much on the baluch as You
so can't realy discuss here with you but there is something I don't quite understand..

1. Madrasa rug. Where is the name coming from, who and why created it, basing on what? I understand that we are talking about the rug that Chuck posted and few similar shown later?
As I said I'm not a blauch-man so correct me if I'm wrong but when I hear a name for a tribal or semi-tribal object I connect the name with USAGE rather than patterns - maybe except "tree of life" so I would rather think that "madrasa" carpets where used in madrasa and not that they are showing designs which can be "translated" as pencil boxes or so on..
which I just can't see on that rugs..

2. Nice boxes collection there Chuck .. Are you sure the last handpainted box is wood? All the ones I've ever seen before were paper-mache but they weren't old too much.

3. Is this rug somewhere close to what you are talking about here? I mean the triangle-kind border is very close to your "madrasas". I bought this one few years ago as an extra-strange baluch, than I've seen some similar ones and now you talk about something much much closer to it here..
Let me know what it is please.
wool on wool, size about 1.2x1.9 m. nice indigo blue with some abrash here and there and parts in brown which changes into obergine.
It looks full of life and colours on the pics but it looks much darker in reality.









regards

marek

David R E Hunt

Hi Marek

Sorry, I know, this has been a rather long and convoluted post. Madrassa is the Arabic (?) word for "religous school", and I coined the appelation for this rug in recognition of the so-called "inkwell" and "pen/pencil box" and "Tree of life" motives in the field. Madras is a (former) city of India, and while similar, the words mean two different things.

I am the owner of this rug, and the person who posted the other rugs too.

Yes, this is an attractive rug you have here. See Boucher Plate 54 below for what conventional wisdom would assert is an earlier version of your rug. They are refered to as a "Yacob Khani" or some such in the literature, and a well recognized type of Baluch rug, closely related to the Timuri, of which I believe the Madrassa rug to be an example.

Interesting creatures, these inkwell/pen/pencil box motives. We read from different sources, differing interpretations of what they represent, so let's take a closer look.



While some authors refer to the above motive as a stylized leaf or palmette form, I have also read of them being discribed as a form of inkwell, constructed of clay, which consisted as if a stack of round ashtrays, with the cigarette holder portion acting as an aperature through which to access the writers ink which has been poured into the resevoir. Supposidly such a contrivance was used to provide several writers with ink.





I find it of interest that thel, enlongated "lozenge" at the center of the inkwell motive bears a strong resemblance to the pen holder, of which Chuck supplies us with several photographic examples. This same central motive also bears similarity to motoves found in other baluch weavings, and in fact those found in some Yakob Khani rugs (see Boucher 54 again),which seem to morph into the rectangular, ormanental pencil boxes of the type with which we are all familiar. And some motives found in these same baluch group weavings seem as hybrid crosses somewhere betweem these rectangular pencil boxes and the enlogated pen holder.



Even the venerable Tree of Life motive is not immune to such interpretation.

Notice the similarity between the drawing of the "trunk" of the TOL motive, and the first pen box image submitted by Chuck. Also, Thomas Cole, in his article " Yacub Khani And Dokthar-I-Gazi Baluch Rugs, Two Timuri Baluch Related Groups",the author discribes and provides a line drawing of a motive discribed as a "pen Holder" which bears some resemblance,albeit superficial, to the TOL motive http://www.tcoletribalrugs.com/article45YaqubKhani.html

Marek Szymanowicz

Hallo David...

As some say: everyday is a lesson. Thank you for yours, it clears my view based on low baluch knowlege before.

I've heared the name of the city before but somehow my brain wired the rug with the arabic word only and that made a little error.
My point is that sometimes european/western/american/non-asian writers/art-historians create some names to call designs they comment but their invention is based on some european/amer/western conotations, points of wiev and so on..
This way sometimes we hear about a "barking dog" motive or so on.. Than we talk to a seller in Iran or somewhere there and he doesn't have a clue what are we on about that barking dog..
I thought the "inkwell" design might be of same origins. But as it exists as well in farsi as "kalamdun" or "kallam donni" as in the linked article it means that it's more likely original name and meaning.
thou
I believe sometimes even the tribal people don't know anymore what is the meaning of the patterns their using and maybe this time they renamed that particular pattern??? I understand floral and animal motives... but an inkbox?? what for?? in a tribal or semi tribal population????
but than we have soviet era and modern day war rugs with kalashinkovs, granades and jets....

Thanks again and regards
marek

David R E Hunt

Hi Paul, Rich,Marek

Find below just a few photos of structural detail and views from the back of this weaving.



Here in a damaged area we see the warp and weft structure.



The back as seen from a distance



Warp depression?



Side cords as seen from the back.



"S" element on purple ground.

There is an enormous amount of this purple in this rug, and hardly confined to the borders.

Dave

Paul Smith

Hi Dave--

I don't know if this is relevant to your interests, but I've been thinking about the choice between two fabulous Anatolian prayer rugs going on in another thread, and I conceived an imaginary choice where you had only that wall where you displayed your more-recent-but-still-nice-and-complete Baluchi main carpet that you posted in a thread last year--that one with the olive green color that you hung sideways, and this one. I find that to be a delicious dilemma, and where I'm at. I have no more walls to hang a big rug, and if I had found this recent rug of yours at what I assume to be an evil price, I would have to move something and probably sell whatever it is, because that is the coolest rug fragment I have seen in a long time. I realize that I value a fragment of an extraordinary carpet more than I do a complete and really nice antique carpet, at least where the Baluchi are concerned.

Paul

David R E Hunt

Hi Paul




Notice the other Baluch and the Turkmen couch have been moved to make room. Moved, not sold. I had seen the post in another thread, regarding having to make choices, and for myself the answer is rotation of your collection, on and off display.

Actually, I didn't pay an evil price for this piece, although I think as a whole I did well. In the above photo it is readily apparent that the fragment has been cut in two, but in the wool you can barely tell that it isn't whole. Just two weeks prior to sale, the dealer decided to cut this in half - so that it would fit on the floor of his booth ???

The dealer was fully aware of what he had. He said that an Iranian physician had spoken to him regarding the fragment, saying that it was a Baluch furnishing carpet, and dating from about 1850. The dealer also asserted that he had already sold the fragment to a dealer fron Boston or NY or some such, who had then later backed out of the deal, citing some financial embroglio.Who can say? My impression was that he just wanted to turn it over for a reasonable return, regardless of ultimate value. He was the one who paid the evil $50 price for this rug, I assume. Trust me, I paid a lot more than $50, but money well spent...

Dave

Steve Price

Hi Dave

Great catch! I'm very skeptical about the mid-19th century attribution, though. My understanding is that the Belouch were nomads or lived in small villages at that time, and didn't have looms that could be used to weave anything more than about 4 feet wide. You don't mention the dimensions, but I'm guessing that the ceiling in your room is the typical height in American homes (8 feet). If so, the rug looks to be 7+ feet wide. Belouch carpets of such size are usually believed to have been made after World War I.

Regards

Steve Price

Rich Larkin

Hi Steve,

What's your authority for consigning the Baluch to small rug production before 1900 or so? That sounds like typical unfounded rug history conjured up from little evidence. The rug itself speaks volumes, and I would be very surprised to find that it was produced after 1900.

Rich Larkin

Steve Price

Hi Rich

Here's my final sentence again:
Belouch carpets of such size are usually believed to have been made after World War I.

It was intended to convey that the conventional wisdom would put a Belouch carpet of this size well into the twentieth century. I don't have specific documentation that it's correct, but I generally trust marketplace lore that puts things into the 20th century while being skeptical of attributions made to relatively narrow time windows (say, 25 to 50 years) prior to the 20th century.

The rug must say things that you can hear but that I can't. Belouch weavers still used natural dyes in much of their work until the middle of the 20th century, so the palette can't place it into the 19th century, even assuming that the dyes are natural (it looks like they are).

Regards

Steve Price

David R E Hunt

Hi Steve

Of course I really don't know how old this fragment is, but it seems to have good age, as well as I can tell. Has that fine,thin feel to it. Smells really good too. At one point in time I owned a so called Timuri type blue ground prayer rug, purported to be from the first half of the 20th century (and sporting a version of the "inkwell" device as a repeating pattern in the prayer niche), but the handle was much different from this fragment.Doesn't prove anything of course, but still.

I know that as far as proof is concerned,appearence s are right up there with psychic, yet all of the published examples of rugs with similar attributes that I have encountered seem to be older pieces. One of the primary reasons for putting up this fragment was to see if I could scare up any other examples.

This rug is rather striking. No other examples? I understand the conventional wisdom, but am not so convinced of it's validity.

Dave

David R E Hunt

Oh well,throw pillows anyone....back to plan B...

Dave

Paul Smith

I have never seen a Baluchi rug with this sort of grand scale, substantial patina, good old colors, and intricate drawing to be attributed to the 20th century, which is not the same as saying it isn't 20th century. But when dating discussions have materialized in the past, the most persuasive argument has been that we lack a chronological measure for this material, especially something this rare, and I think that goes both ways, at either end of the dating time line. Marketplace lore has often been discredited in these threads as lacking any sort of dating certainty, and I can't believe that the considerable size of what must have been an impressive rug trumps virtually everything else we can see in the rug (and it seems pretty clear that handling this piece is consistent with significant age). Marketplace lore would put a smaller fragment of this rug before 1900, I'd bet. One could reasonably conclude that this rug apparently obliterates the theory that the Baluchi wove no carpets of this scale until after WWI, and there are a handful of other notable Baluchi carpets that support this line of reasoning.

Dave--
Yeah, a couple REALLY big room-sized pillows! Maybe that's what this dealer had in mind when he cut it.

Paul

Steve Price

Hi Folks

Let's take a look at the reasons for placing this carpet into the 19th century and see where they go.

1. It's very worn and every other Belouch group carpet of comparable size and quality (color, drawing, etc.) that any of the participants has seen was also very worn.
Wear is a poor indicator of great age. Belouch group pile weavings are well known for having wool with very poor wearing qualities, and I'd expect any Belouch group carpet of floor covering size to show wear within a fairly short time. George O'Bannon wrote about this in an article in Oriental Rug Review about 25 years ago. The luxurious, silky feeling Belouch group wool evidently has poor abrasion resistance.
2. The colors look to from natural dyes.
This doesn't help much in making age attribution to Belouch group rugs, since many were made using all natural dyes until about 1950.
3. The handle is like that of some smaller pieces that have been given early attributions.
I accept this as a piece of evidence in favor of the early attribution, but not strong enough to be compelling all by itself.
4. Marketplace lore would place it into the 19th century if it was much smaller than it is.
Probably true. But the main reason for questioning such an attribution is the size.

What about reasons for placing it in the 20th century?
1. Conventional wisdom (= marketplace lore), is that Belouch group weavers didn't produce pile weavings with widths greater than 3.5 or 4 feet until the 20th century because their lifestyle precluded having looms big enough to do it.
Marketplace lore often derives from romantic sounding hype transmitted by some sellers in order to increase the appeal to buyers. Nobody doubts its reliability more than me. But there are a couple of reasons why I give higher credibility to conventional wisdom that assigns 20th century dates than to conventional wisdom that assigns earlier dates. One is that there's no motive for anyone along the chain of sellers to attribute something to a late date. It doesn't increase the value, it diminishes it. Another reason is that many rug dealers buy most of their inventory as new weavings, so dealers who have been in business for a long time know what was being woven at different periods in their own lifetimes and during the lifetimes of their mentors. For these reasons, marketplace lore that gives certain things attributions in the 20th century have, in my opinion, a reasonably high probability of being correct.
2. Large pile carpets were (still are) woven, not for the weavers, but for customers who could afford to buy them and who had floors big enough to use them: the wealthy, the nobility, the clergy. By central Asian standards, middle class Americans and Europeans count as "wealthy". Who would have been the customer for this carpet in the 19th century, and what would have been the marketing chain?

None of this is definitive evidence one way or the other, and obviously, I'm not certain that this carpet is a 20th century weaving. But I am less skeptical about that than I am about the hypothesis that it was woven in the mid-19th century. I don't think it's impossible, but that a ca. 1925 date is more likely.

Regards

Steve Price

James Blanchard

Hi all,

First, let me say that I really like David's carpet, and am envious. I think it has a particular vigour in a very traditional Baluch aesthetic.

My initial reaction, based solely on my limited education about rugs consisting primarily of analogy and hearsay (i.e. I read rug books, speak with dealers, read opinions of other collectors), was to place this rug easily into the 19th century. My only reservation about this group of rugs is a tendency towards simplification in the internal designs of the major motifs. There is just something about the drawing that seems a bit inarticulate, but that is just gestalt so perhaps not worth considering in a discussion about age.

I am not persuaded by the conventional wisdom that Steve cites with respect to age and size in Baluch-type rugs and carpets. Perhaps more than most other weaving groups, the Baluch existed in diverse locales and circumstances. Many maintained a nomadic existence well into the 20th century, but it seems very likely that some became more settled in and around major weaving centres like Herat. So while smaller "nomadic" looms might have been "the rule", I expect that there might have been a few larger looms employed by Baluch weavers to make larger carpets. There is another notable example of a large Baluch-type carpet cited by Tom Cole http://www.tcoletribalrugs.com/article12raising.html.

Here are a couple of pictures of that carpet...





The carpet is immense by Baluch standards; 15' by 9'9". For what it's worth (literally), Tom Cole places the rug in the 19th century, and reports a specific provenance that begins with a particular Khan's family near Herat. He also reports that he paid the large asking price for the carpet (in Pakistan).

So in relation to David's carpet, I am inclined to believe that it is plausible to place it along with a few other Baluch carpets that might have been woven in non-nomadic circumstances in the 19th century, perhaps to serve a particular market of town-dwellers.

Having said that, I think that the "palmettes" and "ink wells" on the Cole carpet displays a somewhat more nuanced and complex design structure and drawing than does David's. It also appears to have a wider range of colours. This might not mean that it is older, but these are clues that we are generally encouraged to believe indicate greater age.

James

P.S. In my view, Cole's carpet is fantastic.

Rich Larkin

Hi all,

Steve says,

I don't accept proposition that there is substantial, credible marketplace lore to the point that oversize rugs of the Baluch group weavers were not produced until well into the twentieth century. In my opinion, we hardly know who wove the older rugs of this group, so how can we know what limitations were in place? Very little that is passed around as fact in these matters can be verified when you get down to it. On the other hand, we can see this extravagant rug Dave has. Based on my experience, and the reasons given by Steve in item #3, I find the rug itself a far more compelling argument for age than the made up notion that the Baluch group weavers couldn't manage to set up the oversized loom before 1925.

In 1900, Mumford wrote three pages about the Baluchi (Belouchi) of Belouchistan, with colorful details of who were the most cutthroat of the various sects, etc. Of course, we're pretty sure today that those Baluch didn't weave the rugs we collect today. This fact underscores the difficulty of determining the true facts of the period. On the other hand, Mumford also wrote that no group of weavings (in the late nineteenth century, when he did his research) had shown so much decline between the old work and the then contemporary production as the Baluch.

Rich Larkin

Steve Price

Hi Rich

It won't knock my socks off if I discover that I'm mistaken in my skepticism about room size rugs being woven by Belouch group weavers in the 19th century, and I wouldn't hesitate to place Dave's and the one shown by Tom Cole in that group when/if it happens. Mention of such rugs by Mumford or Jacobsen (two writer/dealers who would probably have known), for example, would go a long way toward persuading me. For now, though, I remain skeptical and I propose that we simply agree to disagree.

Regards

Steve Price

James Blanchard

Hi Steve,

I tend to agree that it skepticism is too rare a quality when considering conventional wisdom in age attribution.

Perhaps if the provenance of Tom Cole's piece was solid and dated back to the 19th century we would be on more solid ground here.

James

Richard Larkin

Hi Steve,

Indeed, we can agree to disagree, and be gentlemen about it, too. In truth, I'm not really arguing with you, so much as taking issue with rugdom's notorious "conventional wisdom." My real point here is that one can rely on little that is assumed about the history of rug production over the last couple of hundred years or so; and one is left pretty much to making out the best guess one can make based on what one thinks one knows. (Whew! That was a tough one.)

I also wouldn't be very shocked to learn that, indeed, Dave's rug was a notable achievement of 1920. It would mean that my own rules of thumb, together with $1.65, were worth about a cup of coffee. But I know that now.

Diverting slightly, and commenting on the two authorities you mentioned, each of them (and many others) illustrates the difficulty of using period authorities to advance one's (there he is again ) own knowledge. Mumford was clearly a pioneer in the field, and relatively highly praised as such by H. R. Dwight in Persian Miniatures. Yet, he got the basic data about the Belouch wrong by attributing the rugs to the wrong people, and committed similar errors elsewhere. It is forgiveable considering his vantage point, but not very helpful. In addition, I find his prose ponderous and essentially opaque when it comes to actually describing rug types in a way that enables the contemporary reader to match existing rugs up with his descriptions. As for Jacobsen, he was a very experienced dealer through the middle part of the twentieth century, and obviously "into the subject," as they say, with great enthusiasm. However, he was extremely opinionated, and I believe it never entered his mind there was anything he didn't know about the subject. My own principal hero in this area for the time being is Murray L. Eiland, Jr., M. D., but even he suffers from having been born too late.

Rich Larkin

James Blanchard

Hi all,

Although I do think that a 19th century date for Dave's carpet seems reasonable based on the existing rug literature and lore, I am a bit more ambivalent about whether it fits in the "early" groups of Baluch.

Here is an example of a wonderful Timuri rug published in Diehr's "Three Dusty Dozen" (page 25). Among the features that seem to suggest an early date for this one is the use of a mid / steel blue, which is said by some to indicate an earlier date. Diehr dates it to the first half of the 19th century. The size is about 5.5 x 4.4 feet.



Steve, although I am happy to agree to disagree, I think do think it is worth exploring the idea that big Baluch carpets didn't exist prior to WWI. What disquiets me about that notion is that I would have to abandon several other criteria that are widely cited as indicators of older age. Consider the following Baluch carpet (published in Diehr's "Treasured Baluch Pieces", plate 87). Without considering the size, several features suggest a relatively early dating, certainly earlier than 1925. Consider the colour range, the design and the drawing. Diehr dates it to the 3rd quarter of the 19th century, presumably to distinguish it from the plethora of "late 19th century" rugs. The dimensions are about 6.5 x 9.4 feet.



Here is another example of a large Baluch carpet that I would have dated to earlier than WWI based on design, drawing, colour, etc. (I also love the "peacocks" in the border). This is also published in Diehr's "Treasured Baluch Pieces" (page 79). It's another big one, at about 10 x 6 feet. Diehr dates it to "2nd half of the 19th century", again suggesting that he thinks it is earlier than the ubiquitous "late 19th century" group. Interestingly, he points to an example of a similar carpet found in a "(mid?) 19th century French painting", which is shown in Hali 83, page 67. I don't receive Hali, but perhaps if someone else has that copy they could scan the referenced painting. That sort of evidence might be helpful.



In the end, I remain on the skeptical side of the spectrum with respect to dating. But I would have to abandon a fair bit of my acquired notions of how to assess the relative ages of Baluch rugs if I had to assign these larger carpets into the post-WWI era.

James

Rich Larkin

Hi James,

I haven't been ignoring your last post, just hoping someone would oblige with the illustration from Hail 83, Page 67. As for the rugs you posted, it was a pleasure to see them, as I don't have those Frank Diehr books (though, evidently, I should). I agree with you, they seem older than Dave's rug, at least the first one. A rug in this design tradition that I would think was more in the mode of the mid-twentieth century is the example Marek posted on June 1.

Thanks for the nice images.

Rich Larkin

James Blanchard

Hi Rich,

I am not sure if any of these rugs are older than Dave's, though I agree that the first one does seem older. My other point was that the second two rugs that I posted were quite large and seemed to meet most visual criteria for older Baluch carpets, which for me challenges the notion that such big Baluch rugs were only made after WWI.

James

Steve Price

Hi James

I don't think there's more than 2 or 3 Belouch group weavings that can be documented to have existed as early as 1875 (there's a bagface or two in the Victoria and Albert Museum). I believe the earliest known photo of a Belouch group rug dates to the last decade of the 19th century. It seems to be generally accepted that Belouch group weavers still made significant numbers of rugs and bags with handspun wool and natural dyes until about 1950. This pretty much eliminates palette as a reliable basis for attributing a Belouch rug to a pre-20th century date.

The bottom line is, attributing any Belouch group piece to the 19th century is a seat of the pants estimate based on almost nothing except marketplace lore. Is such an attribution ever correct? No doubt, the answer is yes. The problem is, we have no way of knowing.

Besides that, room size carpets present a special case. Unless there is some reason to think that there were workshops (places with big looms in which carpets can be woven) in which Belouch carpets were produced in the mid-19th century for sale to those who could afford them, they are even less likely to be antique (let's call 19th century "antique") than smaller pieces are. Are there pre-20th century photos of such rugs? Traveler's reports? Do they appear in "orientalist" paintings? Who would have been the customer base? Not westerners, Persians or Arabs; the Belouch palette was considered unattractive by most buyers (even collectors) until well into the 20th century.

Regards

Steve Price

James Blanchard

Hi Steve,

Those are good questions. I am not sure if there is documentary evidence, but then that wouldn't be so unusual in assessing tribal weaving from earlier than 1900. There are, however, numerous writers who place Baluch weavers geographically from Khorassan to Sistan in the 19th century, meaning that they were likely to be juxtaposed with urban populations that liked carpets. The widespread adoption of Turkmen designs and motifs by Baluch weavers suggests to me that there were interactions with those weaving groups and likely a fair bit of commercial enterprise around Baluch rugs. This doesn't prove that any Baluch weaver had a larger loom prior to WWI, but their almost certain engagement in the rug trade in that region and the presence of a number of larger rugs that most observers place in the 19th century suggests to me that there might have been. It would be good if anyone can dig out the 19th century orientalist painting that Diehr cites as showing a Baluch carpet (Hali 83, page 67).

Here is another set of examples that might illustrate why some of the larger rugs "look" older. These are from an article on Thomas Cole's site entitled "YACUB KHANI AND DOKHTAR-I-GAZI BALUCH RUGS TWO TIMURI BALUCH RELATED GROUPS", by George O'Bannon (http://www.tcoletribalrugs.com/article45YaqubKhani.html).







"Conventional wisdom" would date the second and third examples earlier than the first, based on design and drawing. The first rug is dated 1330, or "1911". I know that this is rather thin evidence, but I would have a hard time getting my mind around having to date all of these old-looking carpets later than smaller rugs that look to have degenerated designs. But maybe that is another symptom of having been overly influenced by conventional wisdom.

James

Steve Price

Hi James

I have HALI #83 at home, and will try to find time to scan page 67 tonight if nobody else does it before then. If it's a room size Belouch group carpet (and if Frank Diehr says that it looks like one, I don't really doubt that it is), I'll be convinced that there are such things as 19th century room size Belouch group carpets.

Clearly, Belouch weavers adopted Turkmen motifs, and this almost certainly means that there were contacts and exchanges of weavings (or women!) between them.

Regards

Steve Price

Steve Price

Hi People

I've got HALI #83, p. 67, open in front of me. The image is much too small to put up, but it is a photo of a 19th century French painting that was sold at Sotheby's in 1995. Here are some excerpts from the text in HALI:

... (the painting) depicted a 'Baluch' main carpet of the type usually attributed to the Yaqub-Khani Timuris. ... We know that the great carpet exhibition at the Imperial Austrian Trade Museum in Vienna in 1891 included eight 'Baluch' rugs from the collection of Jacob Adutt ... Riegl's small exhibition catalogue illustrates a corner of one of them, also a ... Yaqub-Khani main carpet.

Obviously, Belouch group main carpets were being woven and sold to westerners in the 19th century. I wish I could say that I learn something new every day, but at least I did learn something new today.

Regards

Steve Price

James Blanchard

Thanks for looking this up, Steve.

It is uncommon that there is documentary evidence that bears on these sorts of issues with respect to antique rugs.

With respect to Dave's rug, I am still inclined to place it firmly in the 19th century, but I am not sure where to place it in the age continuum. As I mentioned in earlier posts, there are some "Timuri" types of rugs that seem to have "palmettes" that seem to have more intricate design and drawing. But that is quite speculative on my part.

James

Steve Price

Hi James

There's much more evidence than what any one of us carries around in his head. In a formal professional society, every comment would have a footnote referencing sources that bear on it. In an informal discussion group (conversation group, really), people toss in their opinions and seldom worry about how they acquired them. One of the strengths of open forums is that if relevant information is out there, some participants are likely to know about it and can share it with the rest of the readership. Your introducing Frank Diehr's book mentioning a brief paragraph that was in HALI nearly 15 years ago illustrates this perfectly.

Regards

Steve Price

Richard Larkin

Hi Folks,

The notion that very few surviving Baluch rugs date from the period before 1900 is encountered not infrequently; but I don't think there is a sound basis of evidence to support it, any more than there is a solid basis of evidence to place many Baluch rugs firmly at a specific nineteenth century date, or a date before the last quarter of that century. What does exist, in my opinion, is a body of material that justifies a conclusion that a reasonable number of rugs from well back into the nineteenth century, and perhaps earlier, do exist, though we may not be able to be very specific about individual ones. The process of analysis suggested by James in his post linking to the George O'Bannon article is a very valid approach in this regard, though it must necessarily leave us with tentative conclusions.

Following are a just few rugs that are part of the "body of material" I mentioned.


The bagface above is one of a pair mentioned by Steve from the Victoria and Albert Museum collection. They were acquired by the museum in 1876, presumably in the condition shown. I have handled either this piece or its twin, and I recall thinking at the time, somewhat to my surprise, that it was not much different from a number of better pieces in this familiar design I had seen over the years.


Above is another early acquisition of the V & A, 1883 or thereabouts. Though the condition seems good, it does have a few blemishes, suggesting it was not new when acquired.


The main carpet above is the Wher collection piece that was one of the stars of the "Carpet Magic" exhibition in London in 1983. At least as impressive as the dramatic design and excellent coloring is the extraordinary textile quality of the rug. It is densely woven of long, silky wool pile, yet extremely supple in feel. I handled this piece as well, and was put in mind of a most elegant and luxurious furred pelt when doing so. I have never encountered a Baluch like it in this regard. Although the apparently unique character of the piece could plausibly have been created at any time as a one off tour de force, I am inclined to attribute the scarcity of the type to great age and the consequent failure of like pieces to have survived.


The last image is a piece that sold on the internet a couple of years or so ago. It is dated 1805. My firm policy is to approach every dated rug with great caution, but this one is exotic enough for me to make the date quite believable.

In sum, I don't know what it is that compels some commentators to deny the possibility of significant age to extant Baluch rugs (I'm not referring to Steve here), in contrast to other recognized groups. Speaking of the 1983 Carpet Magic affair, I recall that one of the prominent dealer sponsors (nameless here) published a catalog for the event. Guest writers penned chapters on various groups of rugs, and the gentleman assigned to the Baluch (also nameless) professed to be an aficionado of the type; then he spent most of his allotted space heaping scorn on those who chose to believe that a number of the entire body of surviving Baluch rugs pre-dated 1900. He cited the V & A collection as evicence to the contrary, alleging that their earliest Baluch acquisition was 1923. That was an odd assertion, considering that the collection was very accesible in those days, and the inventory number of each item includes the year of acquisition.

Rich Larkin

James Blanchard

Hi Rich,

I had forgotten about that mysterious rug that you posted last above. Somehow, to me it says more "Afshar" than "Baluch". Perhaps it is some sort of hybrid? Do you know why a "Baluch" designation was assigned to that one?

I tend to agree with you that it really doesn't seem plausible for piled rugs to have somehow just emerged among Baluch tribal groups around 1900. Consider that a tradition of weaving piled rugs exists across a widely diverse geographic and socio-cultural groups of Baluch nomads. Can we really imagine that they all took up pile weaving within the past 125 years, each with their own somewhat distinctive palettes and design traditions? I actually think that the interesting Baluch paradox of design diversity and aesthetic stability speaks to a rather long tradition. Most experienced rug collectors can instantly identify a Baluch rug, which indicates how Baluch pile weavings differ from other groups. This suggests that they weren't just neophytes copying other rug-weaving groups in emerging commercial period of the late-19th century. Moreover, there is a rather wide diversity of individual designs and motifs, which suggests to me that there were generations of design development by diverse groups, often through their adaptation (not copying) of designs from other groups. And there are plenty of uniquely Baluch designs that are well-developed, complete with design degeneration in later versions.

So, count me among those that think that the Baluch weaving tradition goes back well before the late 19th century. Now, if we could only figure out how to assess the relative age of Baluch rugs...

James

Dinie Gootjes

Hi James, Rich, Steve,

I find this discussion about the age of Baluch weavings very interesting, though I don't have much to contribute. Rich, you have had close encounters of the I-don't-know-how-manyeth kind with some awesome rugs.
Is that the "mah" motif Wegner mentions, there in the centre of that interesting fourth rug in your last post??

http://www.rugreview.com/balc.htm

It appears in some of those Arab Baluch rugs with knots open to the right. The figure in this rug even has the crosses on a stalk those Firdows rug also have. Wegner mentions that "Twenty-five years ago only some very old Balouch weavers and the Djulghe Khaf were able to associate these patterns with the moon." That would then have been in the late fifties/early sixties of the 20th c. It does seem to have long roots though, if the date in the rug can be believed.

Dinie

Steve Price

Hi James

I don't doubt that pile weaving by Belouch group people goes back a long way, but I do doubt that many of the extant Belouch pile weavings predate the late 19th century. Why? Very few westerners were interested in owning them until well into the 20th century, and the older ones are mostly gone. To complicate matters, there are no reliable criteria for distinguishing very old (whatever that means) Belouch group rugs and bags from pieces woven in the first half of the 20th century. While the other western and central Asian weavers enthusiastically adopted machine spun wool and synthetic dyes by the end of the 19th century, many Belouch group weavers continued to use natural dyes and handspun wool for about another 50 years.

As an aside: Richard Wright has recently posted a very interesting essay on kustar weaving in the Caucasus. The URL is http://www.richardewright.com/reports.html

Regards

Steve Price

James Blanchard

Hi Steve,

You might be right about the current existence of older Baluch rugs, but how different is this from other weaving groups? My general understanding of current thinking is that the proportion of Turkmen weavings that are thought to predate 1875 is pretty low. Similarly, the proportion of Qashqai or Khamseh rugs that are thought to be earlier than the late 19th century seems quite low. It might be that there is a smaller percentage of extant old Baluch (e.g. pre-1875), but how do we know that? Perhaps fewer have survived because of a lack of interest by Western collectors in previous times, but that assumes that Western collectors were more assiduous in preserving rugs. My experience suggests that might not be the case. Perhaps fewer really old Baluch examples remain because they were less durable. In any case, I think the larger problem is that we really don't have reliable criteria for assessing the relative age of Baluch-type rugs, and even if we did I am not sure how we would peg a chronological sequence to particular eras. As Rich points out, the provenance of a few of the V & A examples suggest that they have good age, and yet they don't seem all that exceptional in comparison to other extant pieces, considering colour, design and manufacture. I am probably biased, but I am not persuaded that the antique Baluch weavings in collections now are substantially younger than those of most other tribal weaving groups.

James

Steve Price

Hi James

There was substantial European demand for Turkmen pile weavings by the mid-19th century, and many were made (and preserved). Demand grew, and by the late 19th century much of the Turkmen production was modified to meet western preferences (finer knotting, more fine detail, more borders, etc.) It's not difficult to distinguish ca 1900 Turkmen juvals, ensis, and rugs from things that are 25 or more years older. The vast majority of the extant Turkmen stuff dates from the late 19th/early 20th century, although collectors want the older stuff and are willing to pay for it.

Lack of western interest in Belouch rugs until the 20th century probably had several effects. One is that a higher percentage of the older pieces stayed in the native land and weren't preserved by western housekeepers. Another is that there was little pressure on the Belouch weavers to adapt their products to western taste, so the traditional designs, motifs, palette and layout were preserved well into the 20th century. Presumably because of the isolation of the Belouch, old fashioned methods (natural dyes, handspun wool) were retained as well.

For these reasons, I don't think there are reliable criteria by which to make age attributions much finer than Pre- and Post-World War II. And for any given piece, the age is more likely to be later than earlier. The same is true for Turkmen stuff, of course, but later work is sufficiently different than earlier work to make it easy to distinguish between the two.

Regards

Steve Price

Rich Larkin

Hi all,

I don’t buy the proposition that Baluch rugs were generally unpopular until well into the 20th century, and then only interesting to a splinter sect of extremists (this last note an editorial comment of the writer). I made a brief canvass of several of the early popular books and came up with the following:

Mumford (1900): No data on sales, but said “…the production is enormous.” Praised the older rugs, decried the decline in quality, saying modern production lacked diversity in design and color. Said no rug had suffered as much deterioration in quality from the old standard as the Baluch.

Langton (1904): Mentioned the unusually rich, dark cast of the rugs, “…and so they are much desired.”

Dunn (1910): Said there were “hosts of them in the market,…” but good ones were becoming scarce.

Hawley (1913): (recalled from memory in this case, as I can’t locate the book) Described the sheen and richness of fabric as unsurpassed by any other nomad rug.

Lewis (1920): Complained that the modern article was much inferior to the antique, and said few modern examples were “undoctored.”

Taken as a whole, I think these comments suggest that the Baluch rug was not less a factor in the western market than many other groups, though they probably did not enjoy the cachet of Turkoman rugs. Furthermore, it appears that the popular tastemakers of the time gave their readers reason to seek out and cherish antique Baluch rugs in that period no less than other types.

James, your comment about my image of the 1805 dated rug is well taken. I agree it has a very Afshar way about it. In fact, the apparent hybrid look of it is part of what makes the early date plausible for me. On the Baluch side, the coloring is very suggestive. In addition, the distinctive border appears in apparently later rugs that seem Baluch. I've recently seen it called the "dragon" border on e-bay. Thus are myths and legends created.

Rich Larkin

Rich Larkin

Hi Steve,

We've agreed to disagree, so you won't be shocked to learn that I think one can safely make finer graded judgments about the age of various Baluch rugs than "pre or post WW II." Taking the posts James contributed of the illustrations from the O'Bannon article as examples, I think it is quite conservative and sound to judge them to be very much earlier than 1940 based on the obvious high quality of the color, evident even in the pictures, and the distinctive character of the drawing in those very Baluchified (though possibly derivative in some instances) designs. I doubt very much anything like those pieces was woven in 1940, though some weavers may have held onto traditional usages at the time. A quick look through Edwards makes the point.

In general, I think it is possible for the careful, experienced observer to conclude that certain rugs are probably older than certain other rugs. In some of the cases, the assumed sequences may be out of kilter based on varying standards from one geographical area to another, etc.; and it is difficult to assign objective age. But the grades of difference can be broadly noted and appreciated. Now and then, things like the V & A pieces show up to help us tie a few lines down. That general bagface design manifest on the 1873 V & A model, for example, is ubiquitous on the internet rug sales venues; but most of them are patently later, though they may use natural dyes. One is not apt to confuse 99.999% of them with the "real thing."

Rich Larkin

James Blanchard

Hi Steve,

I follow your logic regarding the fact that the longer preservation of tradition weaving among Baluch groups clouding our ability to date them more than the Turkmen groups. But the writings cited by Rich do indicate that some folks were decrying a degeneration in Baluch rugs around the same time as the degeneration in Turkmen weaving, or shortly thereafter. Now, if we had pictures from that time period of the "older" and "newer" rugs we'd be in business.

I do think that there might be some clues. For example, some Baluch rugs have cochineal dyes. Notwithstanding the use of traditional methods and natural dyes well into the 20th century, wouldn't it be unusual for cochineal dyes to be used that late?

I am not sure whether I would rather trust a prized pile rug with a western housekeeper over a Central Asian family. In the past several years I have purchased some rugs of decent age (19th century, I would say) that are in such a good state of preservation that it seems like they were set aside and preserved unused shortly after coming off the loom. These were all from Central Asian families that had obviously preserved the rugs with great care.

James

Steve Price

Hi Rich and James

Rich, the sources you cite are compelling, and it's obvious from them that Belouch rugs were marketable and had a substantial clientele in the west by the beginning of the 20th century. The old saw that nobody was interested in them before 1925 or so is clearly a fiction.

James, while I don't doubt that many families in central Asia took very good care of the rugs - one form of stored wealth - my guess is that textiles that found their way into the homes of well to do Americans and Europeans are more likely to be in today's collections than the ones that stayed in Belouch villages. I'm not exactly batting 1.000 on my guesses so far, so I wouldn't be astonished to be wrong again.

Regards

Steve Price

Paul Smith

Steve, Rich, James, et al--

One of the things in the dating discussion that perturbs me is that in spite of the fact that Steve refers to Europeans wanting Turkmen rugs by the "mid 19th century" we have no more documentation for Turkmen rugs before the mid 1870s than we do Baluchi rugs. The Turkophiles do EXACTLY the same thing that Baluchophiles do (I happily belong to both camps), which is that they find things that seem really old and say that they are really old, and everyone likes to throw a "mid-19th-century" dating out there. But they have only circumstantial evidence for their claims, beyond some intriguing C-14 data that doesn't apply to virtually all of the Turkmen rugs we deal with. I know that this is the case, because when I posted a clearly old Tekke main carpet here about a year ago, we quickly arrived at the point where no one could say it was older than 1875. I thought that was an honorable and thoroughly defensible position, honestly, but let's be consistent...the situation is no different with the Baluch. We know a bunch of these fabulous weavings are really old, but we don't know how old, and we probably never will. I don't know how the assumption got started that the Baluchi got into the rug weaving game late, but there is no evidence that they haven't done it for as long as anyone else.

Paul

Steve Price

Hi Paul

The situation with Turkmen rugs is a little different. Dealers in the USA and Europe were a big enough market for Turkmen stuff that by the late 19th century the Turkmen were weaving large numbers of rugs (especially small carpets, ensis and juvals) that were woven with greater knot density and more borders because that's what the customers wanted. Late 19th/early 20th century Turkmen stuff is pretty easy to recognize. More changes came about as the 20th century progressed, and those were/are known well enough to make it pretty easy to attribute Turkmen rugs to within about a third of a century from about 1900 on.

So, what we have is reasonably accurate ways of attributing Turkmen rugs from 1880 or so to the present. Going back before 1880, things get hazy. Lots of Turkmen rugs, but not much of a database of documented ages until we hit the ones dated by C-14 (maybe, early 17th century and before). That's a real problem, since the time span for which we're in darkness is just about the full range of collector interest.

In the case of Belouch group, the database of documented examples predating 1925 or 1950 is nearly nonexistent. There's little doubt that Belouch were weaving and exporting rugs before the fourth quarter of the 19th century (I learned that in the past few days and haven't forgotten it yet), but criteria for judging ages before that period aren't based on much of a foundation. So, although the Dark Age is from about 1875 to about 1650 with Turkmen, it's from about 1925 (or later!) to as far back as anyone wants to go for Belouch.

Regards

Steve Price

Rich Larkin

Hi all,

Since hard evidence for the age of early Baluch rugs is scarce, one needs to see as much as possible, even though some of it is flawed. The following image from the first edition of John Kimberly Mumford’s Oriental Rugs (1900) falls under the flawed category.



The rug (measuring 4’ 11” x 7’ 2”) was from Mumford’s own collection, and he pronounced it, “…judging from its condition,…all of a century old.” Among the other flaws in the evidence (judging age from condition being one of the flaws) is that the plates in the text apparently underwent a process of tinting that altered the true colors, and perhaps gave the rug a different “look” than it actually enjoyed, as well. In the case of this Baluch, he described it as differing from the ordinary Baluch in color, and resembling more the Tekke. However, looking at the plate, one would say it seems to have the deep mahogany look typical of many Baluch rugs, and not much in common with most Tekkes. However all that shakes out, the plate is worth looking at, and the opinion of a diligent early observer like Mumford counts for something.

Incidentally, I’ve added a link to the Mumford book, which can be perused on Google books. You won’t find this plate, as the Google version is the second edition (1902); the text did not change, to my knowledge, but the plates did.

http://books.google.com/books?id=uz87AAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Mumford+Oriental+Rugs

Rich Larkin

Steve Price

Hi Rich

Since Mumford included a photo of the rug in a book published in 1900, the rug cannot have been woven any later than the late 19th century. His belief that it was already at least 100 years old on the basis of its condition isn't simply a flawed piece of evidence, it's irrelevant. I'd add that the condition actually looks pretty good. Even the flatwoven ends have plenty left on them, and they often show wear long before the pile gets seriously worn.

My inclination is to add it to the database of Belouch group rugs that can be documented to have been woven before 1900. The total in that database is probably no more than a few dozen pieces. Sadly, nobody knows how long before 1900 it was woven. It could be as late as 1880 or 1890 (based on my impression of its condition in 1900 ), it could be 100 or more years older than that. I don't think it helps much in an effort to develop criteria for attributing Belouch group rugs to narrow windows of time prior to 1900. It does illustrate that a fairly serious ruggie in 1900 had Belouch rugs in his collection.

Regards

Steve Price

James Blanchard

Hi Steve and Rich,

I am also underwhelmed by the argument of condition in relation to age. But I expect that Mumford also had some other reasons for thinking that the pictured carpet seemed older than other contemporary rugs. Interestingly, based solely on the image I am not sure that I would have confidently placed it in the 19th century, which illustrates that I am not aware of good benchmarks for assessing relative age based on the look of Baluch rugs.

Steve, your point about having so few Baluch rugs that are of at least a certain age is a good one. My understanding is that cochineal dyes began to be replaced by aniline dyes in the 1870s, and were pretty much out of use by the early 1900s (and maybe a bit earlier in Baluch regions). In that case, perhaps we could assemble a group of Baluch rugs with cochineal dye and consider them most likely to be manufactured in the 19th century. In that case we could considerably expand the database of Baluch rugs likely to be from earlier than 1900 with relatively little effort.

James

Rich Larkin

Hi Steve,

Everything you say is true, except that Mumford's opinion is irrelevant. It doesn't prove anything, but it probably identifies the rug as having had some significant age in the late 19th century when he acquired it. Mumford made quite a few mistakes, but he was a pioneer in his effort, and spent about twenty years diligently studying his topic, including a good deal of time in many of the areas of production. As I mentioned, he was quite emphatic on the point of the fall from excellence, as he saw it, that had been suffered by the Baluch rug at the time he was writing. Surely, the opinion of such a man as to the likely age of a particular Baluch rug is worth our consideration. Unfortunately and ironically, he spent a couple of pages waxing about the harsh country of Beluchistan; but we know the rugs weren't produced there. As to condition, I think the coloring or printing process of the plates had the effect of leveling the rugs, to some extent, and reducing detail. Certainly, Mumford was in a position to observe and verify compromised condition in his own rug. The relevance is that we have an imperfect picture of a Baluch rug that was probably woven well back into the 19th century.

Rich Larkin

Steve Price

Hi Rich

The only basis Mumford mentions for assigning great age to that rug is its condition at the time of his photo (not later than 1899). We can take two positions on this rationale: (1) that the condition is irrelevant to age attribution or (2) that the condition is relevant to age attribution. If the first position is adopted (more or less my view), then the condition tells neither you nor I nor Mumford anything about the age of the rug at the time of the photo except that it wasn't brand new. If the second position is adopted, I'd say that the condition looks plenty good enough to place it within a quarter century of the photo (say, 1875 to 1900). The worst wear is only some relatively minor losses to the kilim ends. I think the most likely explanation for his thinking that this rug was ancient is that most of what he saw may have been newly woven, so he thought that any rug with light to moderate wear was archaic. That's certainly what travelers see most in the same areas today. I think he demonstrates that age attributions just weren't among his strengths. That's not meant to be a harsh criticism of him; age attribution probably wasn't anybody's strength in 1900. But it does leave me wondering what he means when he says that Belouch weaving was at the head of the pack in deterioration of quality between the distant past and the present (1900). Was he even comparing older Belouch to younger Belouch?

Surely, the opinion of such a man as to the likely age of a particular Baluch rug is worth our consideration. Why? Despite his 20+ years of study, he didn't know that condition is a poor a criterion of age, and, to make matters worse, if we take the view that it is a decent criterion, he appears to have applied it to this rug incorrectly. He didn't know that Belouch rugs weren't woven in Belouchistan. He thought that this rug looked more like a Tekke than a Belouch, although I see nothing Tekke about it except that it has lots of red and would identify it as Belouch group without any hesitation. Despite his 20+ years of diligent study, there were gaping holes in his knowledge of fundamentals, and much of what he believed (and presented as factual in the book) is simply incorrect.

Incidentally, he evidently had wide ranging interests, and also wrote:
1. A two page article in Harper's Weekly (1908), "This Land of Opportunity: Gary, The City that Rose from a Sandy Waste"
2. A book (1921), "Outspinning the Spider; the Story of Wire and Wire Rope"
3. A book (1924) "The Story of Bakelite"

Regards

Steve Price

Richard Larkin

Hi Steve,

I'm not Mumford's champion by any means. In fact, at the end of the day, I find him a bit of a pain in the rump on account of his opaque descriptions of rug styles that leave you unable to link the rugs he's talking about with rugs you've known. However, I am prepared on faith to give him far more credit for knowing what he was about than you are. It's true that there were huge holes in his knowledge of the subject, quite understandably. On the other hand, I can't think of anyone else who didn't or doesn't also have huge holes in his or her knowledge. However, I am also aware that a person who looks at and handles a large volume and variety of these things with keen interest and a little wit eventually develops some subtle skills of observation and a store of knowledge that can support some reasonable and useful conclusions. I assume that Mumford, warts and all, was such a person. That's the faith part.

Forging ahead in faith, I read a little more into his assertion of age for the subject rug than what his brief statement about condition would imply. In doing so, I am mindful of my own experience in chewing on rugs (literally, see other thread ) over the years. I believe some rugs have a patina that can be assessed by the experienced eye. Condition is only part of it. Some rugs that are in less than perfect condition appear to have been carefully and gently assisted to their current state. Veteran dealers I've known have been apt to describe certain rugs as having "an old back." It is a condition allegedly brought about by many years of careful use on the floor or the ground. Of course, we have no idea what the back was like on Mumford's Baluch, but the rug itself from what we can see appears to have the kind of patina I'm speaking of. Specifically, the web ends don't look slightly worn to me. Rather, they look well worn and delicate, but "all there," as the saying goes. I believe Mumford perceived these qualities and others and summed up his grounds for believing the rug had considerable age by the short comment about condition. In the alternative, in my view, he'd have to have been a near moron to have concluded, after all his years of pointed and diligent study, to have assumed that a rug merely worn out must have been a hundred years old. Surely, the man destined to author "The Story of Bakelite" could never heve fallen victim to such nonsense. Rather, I think he could spot a rug pretty well as effectively as his ruggie spiritual descendants, and selected this Baluch out of the general run.

It might be informative to quote the passage about the fall from grace of the Baluch product.

Mumford, Oriental Rugs (1900)

I realize that none of this impresses you much, and it proves nothing. I just wanted to give the other readers out there, who are well aware of the plague of dementia on the landscapes of rugdom, a better idea of just what some of the dementia is like. It is true, though, that numerous dealers rely every day on their acquired skills of the nature discussed above in judging the relative age of rugs they find.

Rich Larkin

Richard Larkin

Hi Dinie,

I see you asked me a few probably rhetorical questions the other day about the alleged 1805 Baluch (?) Afshar (?) rug I posted. I didn't mean to ignore them. I have no doubt the motif in the center of that rug is a reflection of its being in the great design pool carried on by these several weavers. The harder question is whether it reflects any pre-occupation the weavers may have had with the moon. I am highly uninformed on the basic art and ethno history of all that. I know I am usually very skeptical and wary of such discussions as are being put forward by Wegner in that article. I'm probably more in step with friend Steve in that area. Somewhere in the article, Wegner states that at a point, "purely decorative elements" crept into the design." How did he know the difference? Did he pick up this kind of information making house calls (i. e., tent calls) among the Baluch in the 1950's? Maybe so. It would be fascinating to know accurately what special attitudes and understandings the weavers really had about the motives in their rugs.

Incidentally, I didn't mean to aggrandize my own rug chucking career with judicious namedropping. My examination of the rugs I mentioned was not by appointment of Her Majesty. I happened to be at the Carpet Magic exhibition, and was incapable of refraining from giving a grab at the Wher Baluch as it hung there. It is some rug, believe me. The V & A pieces were quite accessible at the time, and I remember a bunch of us went over as an outing between sessions. They were just hanging up on racks with clips, the way samples might be displayed at a retail broadloom outlet. It was great. I'd love to do it again.

Best regards.

Rich Larkin

Steve Price

Hi Rich

I'm not surprised that Mumford wasn't very good at attributing age to Belouch carpets. I don't think anyone is very good at it today, more than 100 years later, for pretty much the same reasons: no database of specimens of known age from which to try to extract criteria. At least he didn't have to concern himself about whether a piece was made in the mid-20th century when he wrote the book.

The paragraph you quoted about the deterioration of quality in Belouch rugs around the end of the 19th century baffles me. We are told on the one hand that the then current production was being exported in significant numbers (his word, if my memory is right, was "enormous"), and on the other hand that the designs and palettes were monotonous and that the wool had poor tactile and visual qualities. Why did dealers and consumers want them? Perhaps there was a brief period around 1890-1900 when Belouch weavers were making such things; it certainly wouldn't be an accurate description of the bulk of Belouch weaving in the 20th century. The camel ground tree of life prayer rugs were produced in huge numbers around 1890-1900, and there is a degee of similarity between all of them, but I assume that he wasn't talking about those.

Finally, about ... numerous dealers rely every day on their acquired skills of the nature discussed above in judging the relative age of rugs they find. Numerous dealers (and collectors) do more than that, they attribute rugs to specific quarters of various centuries. There is little evidence that those attributions are correct (or that they're incorrect). The date of production of a particular rug isn't a matter of opinion, nor can it be decided by a vote. There is, in fact, a specific day on which that rug came off the loom. We never know which day that was, and in the case of rugs woven before about 1925, we can't place that day into the proper decade and usually can't even place it into the proper 50 or 100 year span.

Regards

Steve Price

Richard Larkin

Hi Steve,

Amazingly, I think I agree with every word you've said. Count me high on the list of those who hold that statements of dates within decades, or quarters of centuries, for virtually all rugs of more than a century or so of age, are largely baloney. Even among the ones with more than a few dated paradigms available for reference, the exercise is largely a crapshoot; and very few of the dates allegedly pegged to the known exemplars are actually worked out in anything like a controlled, "scientific" way. What I do think is possible is to make judgments among defined groups of rugs that, based on certain observed and repeating criteria, some are probably older than others. Even that process is ultimately unreliable, though the criteria may be well noted. The apparent differences of age could well reflect merely differences in regions in the degree to which change occurred. Thus, rugs that seem to be older due to the appearance of a particular color, or weaving practice, etc., could actually be younger examples from a more conservative tradition.

My point about Mumford's rug, if I didn't get it across already (), is that I think it is more likely than not it was a pretty old rug when he got it. Subject to the limitations of the picture, it is in my mind probably one of the oldest Baluch rugs known for which a pictorial representation survived.

I agree that Mumford's comments about the decline in quality of Baluch are somewhat elusive. It passed my mind that when he alluded to the "one model" that most of them represented, he might have been thinking of the camel field tree of life rugs. Other than that possibility, they are conspicuous by their absence from his review. That is the kind of thing about his book that annoys me. He is talkng about something rug-wise prominent to his consciousness, but you're darned if you can make out what it is. Considering he was on the scene before 1900, you'd like to think he could have described more clearly what he was seeing for you. Incidentally, other writers of the period, notably Lewis, Dilley, and others, emphasized that most Baluch coming into America at the turn of the century were undergoing "treatment" of some kind. I have always attributed the large number of oldish, worn, faded, "tapped out" Baluch one finds everywhere to be a legacy of this practice.

Rich Larkin

Steve Price

Hi Rich

I, too, suspect that Mumford's rug was pretty old when he got it, but his claim that it was woven NOT LATER THAN 1800 is pure conjecture. The only criterion that he gave as his rationale for this conjecture is nonsensical. The fact that he wrote a book about rugs and spent a good deal of time in the rug world doesn't eliminate the possibility that he was a moron, although it reduces the likelihood. Some rug books are, in fact, written by morons. Along that line, an author of not one, but two rug books recently criticized the attribution of a rug in the Atlantic Collections catalog to ca. 1800; he proclaimed that it was woven ca. 1825.

I still like Michael Wendorf's reply to a question about the age of a Kurdish rug he was showing at one of the major conferences: "Older than most of the others."

Regards

Steve Price

David R E Hunt

Hi Guys

Thanks much for such an interesting discussion. Sorry about the delay in responding, my computer access has been rather limited as of late.

James, thanks for the vigorous defense of my fragment. I too suspect that it is old, yet of course can't prove it.

Consider the following from Azadai's "Carpets in the Baluch Tradition":

"Baluch products and carpets made in this tradition are not exceptionally hard-wearing. Nomad and village rugs were never considered to be luxury items and were not highly valued, but were used and then destroyed. Only a small number of connissuers valued and collected them and as a result of which few old baluch carpets have survived. Exceptionally fine examples are more likely to have been preserved"; for whatever it's worth, I do think this fragment qualifies as an exceptional example.

In Opie's "Tribal Rugs" we read,

"Early chronicles place Baluch peoples further to the west, in Iran,south of the Caspian, and later in Kerman province. Baluchis who wove pile rugs during recent centuries lived primarily in western Afghanistan and across the Iranian border in Khorasan province, the largest administrative sector northeastern Iran.Large numbers of Baluch and Baluch-style rugs are still made in Afghanisten, mainly in nomadic camps. Most examples from the Iranian side originate in villages". Of import here is Opie's introduction of this production dichotomy of nomadic and village weaving. This bifurcation could explain any number of characteristics demonstrated by baluch weaving.

Let's reconsider the Diehr piece from page 25 of "Three Dusty Dozen".





Notice that both this rug and the fragment share variations of a same border. Is it possible that the border demonstrated by the Diehr piece is in fact a rural interpretation of the more sophisticated border found in the fragment?Of this steel or light blue, often cited as an indicater of age in baluch rugs, could it in fact be an indicater of nomadic weaving, vs. village weaving, rather than age? John Thompson, in "Oriental Carpets", on page100, asserts that "The dark colors are a speciality of the (Timuri) tribe and it should be pointed out that it is more costly and difficult to produce dark than light blue. The coloring has therefore been chosen intentionally".

Nomadic people don't live in isloation from other, settled people. They in fact are dependant upon settled populations, and no doubt learned to weave from settled people. It doesn't follow that a nomadic weaving tradition would predate that of their settled counterparts.This fragment came from a very large carpet, requiring large lots of wool of uniform color, probably dyed to order. The Diehr piece was made from balls of wool, perhaps the leavings of various dye lots,as of the fragment, which the nomad weaver was able to barter, scrounge, or buy. The rustic qualities of the Diehr piece are due more to the conditions under which it was made, than of it's age.

Rich, thanks for the various quotes from early observers. I would like to elaborate upon one which you briefly mentioned. Walter A Hawley, in his 1913 book "Oriental Rugs, Antique and Modern", has the following to say of the baluch;

"When creating the world, the Almighty made Baluchistan out of the refuse" are the words of an old proverb, that refers to a land which formerly produced some of the most interesting rugs of the east" and, "the rugs are rarely colured by analine dyes, thought many modern pieces are chemically washed by dealers", and also " No other rugs have a surface with a more lustrous sheen, due to the soft, fine wool of the pile, which in old pieces is short and closely woven, giving a play of colors, and velvety appearence unsurpassed by any other nomadic weaving. Many of the choicest pieces of Baluchistan weave now on the market are the small saddle bags, that are of rich yet subdued colors, and possess the character and sheen of very old rugs".

The dealer from whom I purchased this rug was a longtime local antique and collectible dealer, although of Western themed fine art and collectible wrist watches, and he was quite confident of his assement of the rug's age and provenance. He is a certified appraiser, but of watches and not rugs as he was quick to point out (he also confided that the certification process for an appraisal liscense isn't rigorous, but that in his speciality he was excellent). He had it for over a year, and no takers save for the dealer who backed out because he couldn't or didn't want to come up with the funds. One of his first statements was something to the effect of whether I was a collector or a dealer.
He said that a customer in the antique mall, an Iranian physician, identified the carpet as a baluch furnishing carpet, and went on to quote an exact date (1851, I think)as it seems is so often the circumstance with such types of dating from persons of this region of the world. Of course it could all be a sales pitch, but I got it for less than half of the asking price, and if the bottom should fall out from under the story, I could cut this thing up to make quite a few throw pillows, and it would still be a good deal.

To be honest, I have recieved several phone call and emails from people regarding this fragment, and they have all been rather positive. Thanks once again for an interesting discussion.

Dave

P.S. I had found during the course of my investigations, that a trade in carpets had been established between Iran's provincial city of Kerman, and of England and Germany during the Safavid period.

Frank Martin Diehr

Hi folks,

I feel a certain ting, my name must have cropped up on Turkotek, so I just post to say HELLO to the young and old Baluchotekkies! Long time no post, but I trust you will have learned of the repercussions in Baluch rugdom last year, and my small part in it, yet I seem not to be able to defeat the rug bug Schürman wrote about back then ...

Now here are my 5 Cents´worth on David´s carpet:
Nice one, David, very good find, very interesting carpet. I recall having seen, in person, only two related main carpets, both rather large and (yet?) to me appearing fairly old, that is ca. second half 19th cent. for those carpets. One is with a timid Austrian Baluch collector, and, incidentally, we will have our annual Baluch collectors´ circle meeting next weekend, and I will allert him to this thread if he comes, so he might leave his opinion here on Turkotek. (I have no photo of the carpet, it is unpublished and not for sale, or else it might have been mine).

The other one is published in Sorgato, plate 32, and I wonder why no-one has cited that here yet. It is quite similar to David´s, in design and colour scheme, it almost certainly comes from the same workshop or village as David´s. Sorgato assigns it to Khorasan, ca. 1870. Perhaps someone can scan and post it here - I can´t.

In his bibliography Sorgato refers to a number of carpets that I cannot realy relate to his (or David´s) piece. The nearest analogy he cites is in McCoy Jones and Boucher´s 1974 Hajji Baba Christmas Exhibition catalogue, but that catalogue is in black and white, and the carpet is cut and shut in width and length. Boucher dated it mid-19th century and attributed it to Adraskand, Afghanistan. (edit: just saw you found that one before me.)

I think David´s carpet is, strictly speaking, "in the Timuri main carpet tradition", rather than a nomadic Timuri main carpet. The town (David´s) and country cousin (the fragment I published in Three Dusty Dozen) reference someone made earlier seems to describe that nicely, and I agree that we should not assume that nomadic is to be taken a earlier than workshop per se.

James already cited a few main carpets that must have been made in a settled environment, and I believe prior to 1900, from my books, and there are a lot more published examples elsewhere. On the topic of Timuri style main carpets, DeWitt Malary is the person to ask, he studied the main carpets more throughly than I did, and held a few talks on that subject, attempting a classification by type and age, if I recall that correctly.

As to age, I addressed the topic of dating Baluch rugs several times, and remember more than one debate here on Turkotek, and remind you of the dated piece Bob Kent showed and that might come up in Hali one day (we submitted a short article some time ago). However, I have somewhat tired of that futile dating discussion, and refer to my tag line here on Turkotek, and my stance on The Expert published elsewhere.

Frank

ps: Fellow Baluchotekkies, you must be aware of the recent vast expansion of publications on/of Baluch rugs?!?: Sorgato, Wisdom, Besim (WIG collection) and Powischer come to mind since 2007, and we´re still ever hopeful to welcome Rageth´s Liestal Symposium book some day soon.

__________________
This is just an uneducated guess!

Rich Larkin

Hi Dave,
A few random comments on your comments:
• Azadi’s remarks are probably approximately correct, from the standpoint of common sense, but I doubt he had any special knowledge of the history of Baluchi woven goods in the marketplace or in the hands of buyers. He is much given to pronouncements of facts for which he doesn’t seem to have solid evidence. In the end, we don’t know what survived and what didn’t, or how.
• You say that the border in your fragment is more sophisticated than the version in the rug in Frank’s book. I would have thought it was the other way around. The drawing in the latter seems more articulated. For example, the white ‘”petals” on that rug look like petals, in the vein of Mina Khani white flowers; in your rug, they have become simple squares. Other details can be analyzed similarly. I don’t necessarily insist that the simplification of the design in a given rug requires the conclusion that it is later in a series of similar rugs.
• I have often puzzled about the point made by Thompson regarding the very dark blue typical of most Baluch rugs, since it is more difficult and expensive to achieve it than a mid blue. I have often heard or read that the dyemasters of the Middle East plied their trade with great pride. Pride in an indigo dye lot of yarn would go with the deepest blue, “surmey,” according to the books. I wonder whether the predominance of deep blue among the Baluch group might be a function of the central dye sources rather than the weavers?
• Hawley made the same error Mumford had made, which was to attribute the pile weavings in the marketplace to Baluchistan proper, rather than to more northern regions in which migrating peoples from Baluchistan had settled.

Having regard to the matter of the size of your rug, and the question whether it could have been woven by Baluchis before a certain period, following is an illustration from Edwards, The Persian Carpet.



It seems that the rug being woven there (near Firdaus [Ferdows]) is at least seven or eight feet in width. The picture was probably taken in the 1940's, but it demonstrates that relatively large rugs were woven by the Baluch on horizontal looms, which are relatively simpler than vertical looms. There's no reason a similar loom couldn't have been set up in the nineteenth century. Konienczny, in his 1979 (I think) book on the flatweaves of the tribes of Baluchistan proper, suggests that the limiting circumstance among the Baluch regarding the weaving of larger items was seasonal. They had to be in place long enough to get the job done. But some of them were settled or quasi-settled in the early nineteenth century.

Hi Frank,

I was hoping Dave's fragment would smoke you out sooner or later. Can you enlighten us about the "repercussions in Baluch rugdom" of last year? Or provide a link, or something? Also, can you provide more information about the recent publications you mentioned, such as full names for the authors, or publishers? Always good to hear from you.

Rich Larkin

Frank Martin Diehr

Hi Rich et al:

David SORGATO: "Baluch" Milano 2007. A prominent dealer´s sales collection catalogue, showing ca. 100 pieces in somtimes muted colour, of varying collectability, but quite a few really nice ones among them. Little text, some structural data an bibliogr. references, hardb., bigger than A4, 300 copies in Italian and 1000 in English.

Gary WISDOM: "Baluch Tribal Weavings" Tubac AZ, 2008. A private collection book, 65 pieces, all decent to excellent, in very good colour, some data and personal annotations, much in line with Boucher´s book. Very much to my liking, and I believe only 250 copies made, expensive, but worth it.

Adil BESIM: "Mythos und Mystik: Belutschen - Die WIG Kollektion" Vienna 2008, part of the WIG collection that is/was being dissolved. I wrote a review for that in Hali recently. I think ca. 75 piecs, some from other collections, again some of the illus. a little muted, and some of the rugs a little repetitive, but also some very nice ones. (In my first book, I printed a number of rugs from that WIG collection, and Besim´s book shows just the remnat part of that vast collecting effort, supplemented by a few from other sources. A4 format, hardb., texts in German and English, reasonably priced.

Walter POWISCHER: Beludj Gedanken - Baluch Considerations (note I´m citing this from memory, I haven´t got it here right now). Vienna 2008. A massive tome, more than 600 pages, by a lone Viennese collector. Very much a one man lifetime ambition (o.k., he said it took him well over a decade to write) It concentrates on motifs an design composition and shows numerous (hundreds, if I recall correctly) of rugs and close-ups, a few not Baluch, and many rather mundane, but in decent enough colour. Produced more or less on demand, and ca. 3.6kgs heavy, I must confess to not yet have perused it fully. It costs roughly the same as the Wisdom book over here in Europe.

As to Rageth´s book, still not out, I hope to get some news on that when I meet some fellow German speaking Balooneys next weekend, including one of the authors.

I hope it is o.k. to allude to opinions and prices of books on Turkotek, perhaps one of the mods might lift those references elsewhere to be found a little easier?

Regards
Frank

As to the repercussions, I let you know by private mail, but please be patient, it might take a while.

__________________
This is just an uneducated guess!

Steve Price

Hi Frank

We have no objections to posting opinions about books, their prices, or mentioning sources. Prefer not to have comments that suggest that one source of a book is better or worse than others, though.

Regards

Steve Price

Rich Larkin

Hi Dave and all,

I hope this isn't redundant, but following is a link to an interesting article from a 1989 issue of Oriental Rug Review by George O'Bannon. It bears on Dave's rugs and related examples.

http://www.rugreview.com/bi92.htm

Rich Larkin