Benjamin Tholen

Hello everybody,

Im new to this forum but have been reading along for quite some time.
Im pretty new also to what I hardly dare to call "collecting", but I developed some real intrest in the art of rugs.

I hope I might find some help here regarding my most recent purchase.
I bought it online, but from a professionell dealer with a very positive record so far.

This is what it looks like in day light



and from a little closer



It was declared as an "antique afghan nomad baluch" and dated to aprox. 1900. When I opend the package, I was shocked - because of the almost mint condition of the piece. I bought some other rugs of similar age, but most of them were far, far away from this pieces condition. The pile is full (7 to 10mm) and very shiny wool, even better then my very nice kurdish one.
The colours seemed a bit too saturated, but then again I saw similar once in pieces that were supposed to have natural dyes.



I couldnt believe this piece to be so old, so I wrote a mail to the dealer. They told me that it had been in posession of the same family for more then 70 years and that their expert dated the rug to be aprox. 100 Years old. Still I wonder.
The rug is in an very unusal size for a nomad piece, as it is pretty large.
295cm * 136cm. though I read in "carpets in the baluch tradition" that long but rather slim pieces like this have been woven for quite some time in parts of Afghanistan.

The next unusual thing is that the wefts seem to be pale blue (maybe cotton?), sometimes grey, while the warp is tan wool. wich I havent found on any other rug (though some arab baluch are supposed to have grey cotton wefts). There is also some rather heavy warp depression of more then 45 degree I'd say.
The knot count is rather high, between 8- 10 by 9. (aprox. 81 Kpsi) It's woven with asymmetric knot, open to the left I suppose.

The selvages could very well be the expected black goat hair, and seem to have undergone a lot of repairs. So actually do the ends, where the kelims, as well as some pile is lost, as can bee seen on the colour left on the wool warps (so Ive read) and the repair having been done with a simple white cotton shot.




There are a lot of Turkmen (I suppose) symbols in it (Ensi Ashik and an x like shape) wich sometimes use a very low contrast to the field.



The field may be camel but seems overdyed. There are a lot of colours in the rug, a redish brown, a blueish red, diffrent shades of aubergine, a lot of very dark green , some lighter green and light blue, a little orange and some white in the border.
Especially the borders a really beautifully coloured and these colours look very natural to me. I think the border resembles the common Turkmen line, but is much more fragile and without latchhooks.



Strange thing is I didn't find a similar border on any rug in the net, but one kind of rare "Zili Zultan" - arab baluch prayer rug displayed on spongobongo, dated 1880[/url], which shows a very similar border and also similar overall colours.



After all this I made another strange discovery: there seems to be some arabic signs woven in the rug above one of the "X" symbols. it looked like arabic numbers, but so far I coludnt get any date out of it that would make sense, because if the numbers are in correct order it woud meen the rug came from the future

I read that it may be that the illiterate weavers mixed up some of the numbers. Well if they also put them in a wrong order, it is possible to read a single date in it that would make sense and this would be - 1272(1). so pending on lunar or solar calendar use a date of either 1855, or 1894.
The latter would come close to the date given by the dealer, but u have to to a lot of twist and turn with the numbers, if it are numbers at all, to get there, and the mint condition and saturated colurs still make me doubt it.

The last stange thing i found is that in two of the leaves of the tree of live motivs, there are some bluish knots woven in, at exactly the same position in two diffrent leaves...

its hard to see on the pics but the bright blue singles seem to be twisted with the wool singles or interwoven with them in some kind.


thanks a lot for any help, hints, ideas...

best
benjamin

ps. sorry for my bad english, I´m german.
pps.: The colours ar far more saturated then they seem on the pictures after uploading them:
correction - the screen one my homecomputer is set up for foto productions. on the screen at work colors are pretty saturated. So colors are of courrse very relative pending on the system config.

Steve Price

Hi People

Just to let you all know that the images are now in benjamin's post.

Regards

Steve Price

Paul Smith

Benjamin--

I am not an expert either, but I would find it hard to believe that your Baluch rug wasn't pretty recent, which would explain the condition. I think the 1900 date is extreme; perhaps they meant it was from the "1900s" which seems more reasonable, but they did call it "antique"--hmm, don't know what to say there. There does seem to be some bleeding onto the warp threads of one color or another, for what that's worth in determining the source of the colors--it usually indicates a synthetic dye. I feel like curmudgeon, though, because I also thought the prayer rug you posted from spongobongo didn't look like 1880, either. I would have placed that one firmly in the twentieth century as well. I guess we'll have to wait for those more knowledgeable than I to sort out the mystery.

Regards,

Paul

Benjamin Tholen

Hi Paul,

thanks a lot for ur thoughts on this one.

I feel a bit like u do about this, though I have a hard time believing that the dealer, a well settled antiques shop, (yet not specialised on rugs only), would lie to me about the story of the rug being in family posession for nearly 80 Years, wich would give a minimum age here.
Concerning the condition they must have stored that thing in a deep fridge though for most of that time
Their expert maybe wrong with dating it to 1900, but that is the date he told them, plus minus ten maybe.
The bleeding I think isnt usual bleeding: Because above the red- colured stripe there is a brown one and both are covering the entire fringe in constantly the same height - to regular for normal bleeding by washing. (this is better seen on the other fringe, I should have uploaded a diffrent picture maybe) Instead I read that this means there has been pile before, where there is bare wool warps now and that in in this case even natural colours may very well transfer their colour into the warps...

a similar effect can bee seen here in the picture on the top, labeld reduced kelim. http://warrug.com/pages/structures/index.php?idst=1

I have now also checked any other white area on the rug, especially those directly adjacent to a red area and there isnt any recognisable sign of bleeding...


best regards

Benjamin

Benjamin Tholen

... oh waht I should have mentioned is that the dealer told me that all their rug leave the house being washed. This might involve some chemicals that give the extreme luster?


best

Benjamin

Alex Wolfson

Hello Benjamin,

I used to have a prayer rug with an identical structure - very soft wool and the same bluish wefts. The seller dated it to around 1950, but I think it was just a way of hedging his bets, by going for a mid-20th century guess.

I wasn't too concerned by the dating because I liked the extreme softness of the wool. I don't have any idea about where exactly they were made...

Benjamin Tholen

Dear Alex,

well thats at least some hint that baluch rugs with blueish wefts actually do exist
As Im not a native english speaker I have to ask about the saying "to hedge one´s bet" - it means that he tried a safe guess not dating it to early, to avoid being accused of wrong information?
Do You possibly have any Pictures of this rug, that You could upload? That would be great!


Concerning the colors Im a bit split. As mentioned before, abrash, sprinkles in the wool and overall texture/look of the colors in the borders look very natural to me, its just the too even dark green that gave to me the impression of being chemical, plus the overall high luster.
Comparing it to the other pieces I have, there is a kurdish one one, wich I have relatively trustworthy information to be natural colored and of similar age and a lot of the colors look very similar, maybe the kurdish one has a little more abrash. (It also has relatively thick pile, up to 7mm and a lot of luster/shine, but not as much as this one and the wool isnt that soft either.)
What they have in common is how the colors change with daylight at diffrent times, so that in the evening some colors seem to "glow", a very beautifull effect none of my other rugs has to a comparable extend.

Then again I have two rugs wich definetly use chemical dyes and they are pretty dull and dont have much luster at all.

On the other hand comparing it to a jajim I have, dated to the end of 19th century and pretty sure to have natural dyes, the baluchs colors are far more saturated, but this is also a flatweave and might have been exposed to a lot of sunlight?

So I dunno. Its hard to tell. If these colors arent natural then I just got caught in some sort of "chemical romance" I guess, cause I love them

Concerning the genral bleeding Issue, as far as I know this mostly concerned early aniline dyes wich actually werent used any more after 1920?
Besides for the reasons explained below Im not sure if what we see here on the fringes can actually be called "bleeding".

I looked at a lot of rugs online and in reality but It seems to remain a bit of a matter of believes, wether these colors are chemical or not. Maybe I shouldnt care about age and colors, but its just to interesting trying to find out

So thanks for all the help so far!

best

Benjamin

ps. - should I try to upload pictures of the comparative pieces maybe?

Benjamin Tholen

Hello everybody,

I just read the Mini Salon 26. In there is depicted a silk pile color called "magenta" used in some turkmen pieces. On the pictures it resembles very closely what I called "blueish" dots woven in two of the leafs of the tree of life.
could there be a connection?

I also read the posts concerning tip fading and whether this relates to chemical colors or not, and might want to ad the information that there is very little tip fading on this rug and only at the reduced top and bottom endings, were the very tips of red pile just seem a paler shade of red, while the green pile shows slightly yellow tips. But this seems to be more due to physical abrasion then fading caused by exposure to sunlight?

good night everybody and thanks again for all ur ideas so far

Richard Larkin

Hi Benjamin,

When I took the bar examination (lawyer), I was told it wasn't important to get all the answers right. It was important to be aware of all the questions. From that point of view, I think you are doing OK with your rug. Following are my observations about it, which I can't verify with certainty.

My working assumption is that when color is transferred in that way to foundation materials, there is an issue of synthetic dye. In that respect, there are few hard and fast rules of when bleding dyes were in use or not. Without doubt, bleeding dyes have been in prominent use in rug production steadily from the nineteenth century to the present.

There is a certain group of synthetic dyes that one finds in Baluch rugs, presumably from the earlier part of the twentieth century, that has the deep intensity of those in your rug. When found, they often exhibit substantial tip fade, a condition that does not seem to appear in your rug. I don't know whether your rug has avoided this fate because it has not been exposed to light much over the years, or whether the lack of tip fade is evidence that the dyes I speak of were not used in your rug.

I would not think that the very glossy character of your rug was the result of some kind of washing process. High gloss is found on many Baluch rugs from the early/mid twentieth century, and it is quite unlikely that most of them were "washed," or given a similar artificial treatment. Many authorities from the early twentieth century, and Jacobsen in the middle twentieth century (looking backwards from that vantage point), commented on the chemical treatment that was administered to a great proportion of the Baluch rugs entering the U. S. However, it seems quite clear that the treatment was harmful to the rug over time, and resulted in a very dull item eventually.

I agree with you that the "inscription" cannot be made to speak for a plausible date of production.

Your rug has deeply depressed warps with (apparently) gray or bluish cotton wefts and wool warps. This is an unusual combination in this type of Baluch rug in my experience.

Rich Larkin

Benjamin Tholen

Dear Richard,

thanks a lot for ur help.
Concidering what u say, more questions arise.

Lets start with the color.
As I mentioned before, the color transferred to the warps shows a very distinct pattern. On the bottom fringe of the rug (unfortunately not on the pictures) there even is a thin green/brown line above the red one.
This, along with the regularitiy of the red "bleed" suggests that the color was directly transferred from the pile that has once covered the warps and has not "run" ob "bleeded" in a classical way, wich also does not seem to be the case in any other part of the pile.
Working with this hypothesis, the next thing is that if I follow the unfinished pattern of the rug on its ends, there are parts of the warp where one would expect "bleed" of a different color.
For example there is a discontinued green line at the left and right border of the rug that one would expect to have continued in the "bleed pattern", but there is no green on that part of the warps. The explanation may be the following:
I have a kurdish rug, where the original kelim ending was lost and replaced with a newer one. The colors of this kelim show some slight bleeding/colortransfer to the pile.
Now from the "bleed" pattern I suppose it may be that this color has been transferred from a kelim end to the warp and not from Pile?
What might also explain why there seems to be no bleed/serious tip fading in the rest of the pile?

Another attempt:

In Mini Salon 26 under the title "run - red - run" Patrick Weiler raises the issue of possible run/bleed from cochinal and tin mordant based "bright salor red" if not rinsed througly enough with water - wich was sparse.
I havent seen any bright sailor red in reality but there is a lot of bright blueish red in this rug and it borrows a lot from turkmen sources anyhow as it seems?
This also counts for the magenta silk issued in the same salon that strongly reminds me of the blueish dots woven in the leaves of this baluchs tree of life.
Still I may be rowing to far out on the ocean here, by just guessing on pictures seen online, where color-wise a tomato on one screen may easily be taken for an apple on another.

Last thing would be the description, wich, even if it doesnt really work as a date, pretty surely seems to be some kind of planed inscription and not just random designelements to me.
any suggestions?

Anyhow, even if synthetical dyes were used, what seems to be probable concidering ur experience with this kind of saturated colors (despite the lack of tip fading), this doesnt mean an age prediction of lets say 1910 to 20 (wich would be within the range given by the dealer) would not be possible, if I got u right on that one?

Finally u mention that this kind of structure - blue wefts (Im not sure if its cotton actually), 2 ply tan wool and pretty heavy warp depression - is untypical for this type of baluch rug, maybe u have any idea where this kind of structure would typically be found?


best regards and
nice dreams to everybody

Jim Miller

Benjamin
The colors, esp strong green and purple in the pile you exposed in the 3rd picture, remind me of Seistan baluch rugs from West Afganistan. See article by Tom Cole http://www.tcoletribalrugs.com/article56BaluchAesth.html for discussion and additional pictures.
Nice rug by gthe way.
Jim

Benjamin Tholen

Dear Jim,

thanks a lot for this very helpfull hint!
Actually u are right, the colors, wich are a little stronger and with more contrast then they appear on the pictures here, resemble those displayed in the article as being from either seistan (zabol?) or chakansur on the afghan side of the border very, very much. Especially in the border and the brightly colored "trunk" of the tree of live. (Yet the overall palette may be a slight bit darker compared to the most colorfull of the detail shots given there.)
Interesting enough that Tom Cole believes the more vividly colored pieces to be older then the more monochrome ones.

thanks again. Ill read it again when im not so tired anymore and my head doesnt slip from my hand every 10 secs

good night again

James Blanchard

Hi Benjamin,

For what it's worth, I agree with Jim that this looks like a Seistan product. In addition to the range of colours, I think that the basic field design is not uncommon on Seistan balishts.

James

Benjamin Tholen

Hello James,

Balisht seems a good hint.
Actually I also enounterd a Design that has at least some similarities in design and tonality on a balisht displayed at jozan, and sold by Knights Antiques. They date it to1900 - 1920, it seems to be in mint condition as well, but they locate its origin to NW Afghanistan, while I suppose the afghan area adjacent to Sistan is rather in the SW of Afghanistan?

Here is the link: http://www.jozan.net/Gallery/Detail.asp?Item=93559

best regards,

benjamin

Steve Price

Hi Benjamin

Balischts are probably pillow covers, typically about 60-100 cm long. Yours is much too big to be one. I don't see how it could be anything except a runner for the floor or a cover for a very long table.

Regards

Steve Price

Benjamin Tholen

Hello Steve,

I have expressed myself a bit unclear here, sorry for that. Of course I didnt mean that my carpet would be a balisht, I just found the similarity in design interesting.

thanks for claryifing on that

Regards

benjamin

Jack_Williams

This looks to be an oldish, between the wars and maybe much older, Arab-Baluch-Ferdous area. The border design and hue is echoed in their weavings, almost a marker. The redish hue at the top probably was once red flatweave, and combined with the odd big selvedge, very Kurdish-Quchan, but the knot and depressed weave takes that attribution out of the equation.

Why between-the-wars-maybe-older? Because of the apparent use of purple Fuschine, a pretty early chem dye, in a few knots only for emphasis, though this could have been just recycling some available rag. Back then, chem dyes were relatively costly compared with do-it-yourself, which is why the Baluch group didn't begin large scale use until after WWII.

Generally the dyes look good to me and the wool looks very good. An attractive rug ... Baluch group did weave some larger pieces (see Tom Cole, "Raising the Bar")

I've long thought that there is a connection between Arab-Baluch rugs and "Afshar" influence, in which case this rug should have an open-right weave. Open left could move it south to Chankasar or in Seistan, perhaps even Zabol.

Richard Larkin

Hi Benjamin,

I'm not sure I grasp exactly what you are suggesting about the possible causes for the color transfer on your rug. If I understand your points, you are distinguishing "running" or "bleeding" color, which would presumably result from a loose dye getting wet, from the phenomenon on your rug, which would presumably be the result of an insufficiently rinsed dye lot (of a basically fast color) lying against the foundation materials and passing the excess dye off to them. I don't know what to say about that, except that I usually take the view that where there's smoke (i. e., stained warps), there's fire (i. e., bad dye). But I don't know for sure.

I acquired a small Baluch mat or balisht some time ago that I would have sworn from the online images was completely sound as to color, and that I thought I confirmed when I opened the package. But when I pushed a little water through what I thought was a perfect madder color to a white cloth on the other side, I got a nearly perfect matching pink stain on the cloth. I was shocked. Upon scrutinizing the thing, I found a light green color that had also stained the off-white warps. I've been chasing Baluch rugs for forty five years, and I'd never seen one like this particular rug. I'll post some pictures.

Referring to your rug and the reference to Seistan area pieces, and the typical "Tom Cole" type of Baluch, I would say that I'm not familiar with Baluches from that area that have the nearly fully depressed warp structure of yours. For the most part, I think of Baluch with such deep warp depression to be associated with the group I believe Michael Craycraft has linked to the Qarai. Many of them are long, narrow pieces with darkish colors in the Mina Khani design. They almost always have the reciprocal "running dog" minor border in white and black/brown. I don't see your rug as from this group. I don't suggest that the structure of yours rules out the Seistan/Zabol area, just that it sets your rug apart as an unusual type not often encountered. In addition, I don't think the palette of yours is firmly within the range described by Cole for this area. BTW, if those wefts are wool, they are very unusual for a Baluch. If they are cotton, the color is not unusual, in my opinion. They look like cotton to me.

I see the post from old friend, Jack Williams. I would say I don't think of Arab Baluch rugs as having the tight, dense structure of your rug. They are usually rather loose in weave.

A couple of notes. Following is a detail image of the border of a Caucasian prayer rug with a distinctly drawn cartouche that surely seems to be intended as some kind of inscription.



The box is about 3 or 4 inches (8-10 cm) approximately square. The red figure in the top center is sometimes encountered in Caucasian rugs as the number "8". One can imagine the weaver was going for a date of 18XX, and it would fit the rug, but it isn't readable to me. I am posting it as an apparent example of an unreadable attempt at an inscription in a rug. It isn't an uncommon phenomenon.

The next two images are the front and back of a Baluch khorjin featuring a dye I associate with some Baluch rugs that often shows pronounced tip fading.







Unfortunately, it is difficult from the images I've provided to get a good sense of the effect. The flash of the camera makes the pile surface look more saturated in color in the image than it appears in the hand. At the root of the knots, however, the yarn is a definite berry or wine color; but on the surface, it has a brick shade. The view from the back finds the true color diluted by the mixing in of the weft color. In my experience, it is difficult without burrowing into the pile to perceive that this color has faded at the tips, as the surface shade seems to be a familiar madder color. Once the examination has been made, though, the change is obvious. I posted it because I thought when looking at your rug that it might have the same color. However, your front/back images don't suggest that it is so. That is the reason I wondered whether your rug had been spared the fading because it may have spent much of its life not exposed to light.

Regarding the age of your rug, I think a date as early as 1910 is plausible, to the extent that I understand dating of Baluch rugs at all. Though I believe there is limited validity in attempting to place such rugs in a chronological context, I confess I am mystified by the confidence many persons seem to have in hanging "1880" on a rug (suddenly, they're everywhere), or "mid nineteenth century." Though we hardly know who wove them, except to roll out "Baluch," somehow, we can fix the year of weaving. It's baffling.

Rich Larkin

Benjamin Tholen

Dear everybody,

I hope it doesnt sound strange but I have to tell You how happy I am about all the help I get here. Its really great to have the opportunity to discuss here. I feel I learn more then from the half dozens of books on rugs, I at least tried to read
- Yet the knowledge u gain, has a drawback - sometimes u find out hings u wish u had not
Well - Ur Hints have led me to a rather sad discovery:
The blueish red in the rug appears to be chemical, probably fuchsine as suggested by Jack?
At first I did a test by rubbing the surface with a damp piece of white cloth firmly on diffrent colors and it revealed - nothing. I was happy.
But then I followed Richards advice and let some water run through the rug from pile to foundation and firmly pressed a piece of cloth against the foundation - after some time it left some pale red/pinkish dots...

I did the same test on all the other colors, none of them did show any bleed.
None? Well on the borders where there is the pink red alongside with green and some very dark aubergine shades, I could see some very little grey/black next to the red dots...

Concerning my thesis on the "colortransfer" instead of bleeding, I basically ment what Jack Williams suggested: The transfer to the foundation may be from Kelim endings. Kelim endings or not - the red is bleeding

After this discovery I also searched the hole pile (nearly ) for any sign of tip fading. Well, maybe I need some help on this. There are some areas where the very tips are a bit brighter, especially on the dark colors, but these seem to follow a slight wear pattern and to be rather caused by physical abrasion then caused by exposure to sunlight?

Im still a bit confused, because I saw some examples of chemical reds faded to grey and nothing like this can be found on any parts of this rug. In fact the pile surface is of very similar color as the foundation pile, just a slight bit brighter at the dark colors maybe and with some more "shine".
In this regard the nice colors maybe the effect of colordetoriation after all?
After all natural colors to fade/ show signs of wear as well I suppose?

What I tryed to suggest by drawing the comparison to the bright salor red - article is just, that there seem to be some natural colors that bleed as well, if not rinsed probably, due to some excess of dye left in the pile.

But I guess I have to except the presence of at least one chemical dye in this one - and Ive heard where ther is one there are probably more...
Yet taking Jack Williams hint, asuming a rather old age, chemical dyes might have been more expencive then natural ones and therefore only have been used for specific colors?

Concerning the structure:

The blueish weft doesnt have the luster of warp or pile, seems to be thinner strands and is probbaly cotton. should I do a burn test?
With the Warps I did one and they are Wool.

From what I found out so far, the rather high knot count does not have to rule out an arab belouch origin. I followed that trail before because of the piece on spongobongo displayed im my original post.
In Azadis "Carpets in the Baluch Tradition" there are several arab baluch rugs displayed, mostly from ferdows, wich have a very similar knot count, some even higher. Yet they are all very old, dated between 1860 and 1890...
All of them are done with an asymetric knot, some open to the right, some to the left. Some foundations are all wool, some all cotton, some a mix. The pile is often descriped as fleshy, wich would also decribe this rugs pile, yet none of them seems to have more then 7mm of Pile. Still - None of them is said to have any warp depression wich seems to be rather heavy on mine...

Concerning the kind of knot, open left or right, I´m not sure If I got that one right: The pile lyes flat in a diagonal that resembles an S - bar, not a Z - bar, I believed this to mean open left?

Color wise the arab belouch pictured on spongo bongo still comes closest to what this on looks like in reality. (at indirect day light)

Regarding the Inscription Richards Caucasian, it seems at least as hard a nutshell to crack (can u say so in english?) as mine. Lets hope some some CIA decryption (?) specialist will show up in this forum soon. Or somebody more firm with arabic numbers/letters? I can see the figure 8 in it but a one?
Do rugs actually get woven with the foundation facing the weaver ( I dont think so?) . In this case it may be easy to reverse numbers?

So what did I learn so far - some chemicals can look very beautifull
Its strange cause all the othe chemical dyed pieces I have are rather dull and liveless and dont show this beautifull changes during diffrent phases of daylight - no matter how carefully I hand - washed them..

So what could explain the lack of sunlight induced fading?
A friend of mine had a father who was bilbliophile. He didnt alow any windowshades to be opend during daylight. Well - this was not the only reason why she described her childhood as terrible, but it surely didnt help. I just hope this rug didnt spoil anybodys youth in a similar manner
Now seriously, if we presume this colors to be less lightfast (wich may be another issue then bleeding after all?) - what could explain the fact that the fading, if any, is so slight?

One last thing - I looked at diffent rugs being on sale with the same dealer, some of them far more expencive then mine, and usually, when they dont know a date they may title the rug as being old but in the field for age, they write: "unkown". So I suppose they must have at least believed in the rug being from around 1900 themselfs, wich would also go along with what Jack and Richard thought of as being a possible age if I got them right?

Again thanks for all ur help! Anybody any Idea on the symetrically placed blue-pink dots in two of the red leaves?

Best Regards

Benjamin

Benjamin Tholen

Hi Everybody,

I will try to decipher the incription. Even though this cant be taken to seriously.
Assuming I would weave that rug, at least to get the dots right, I might try to look at the rug from the foundation to do so. In my head I try to remeber that I have to write backwards now, so the numbers appear in the right order on the surface. Still I mix up the intended direction of the numbers, because of this reversal effect.
Taking a look at the backside of the rug - wich should be better especially with such a long pile diffusing the pattern - and assuming that the first and last dot dont really belong to the numbers but either are signs that indicate something like year or some kind of marks for start and end of the date, the "numbers" would read as: dot - 1 (one knot slightly displaced because the weaver notices that otherweise it would touch the previous cypher, ruining its shape), 2, 7, 1 - dot. Actually there is a line and a dot below the x shape (anybody hints on the "x"s origin?) as well. So in that case I get the date 1271 wich would mean either 1854 (highly unprobable) or 1893 (if the solar calendar is used).

But in the end this surely is to much of reading what u want to read and I should agree with Richard on that its not possible to read this inscription as any kind of plausible date.

Well anyhow, I tryed - good night everybody...

Benjamin Tholen

Dear Richard,

taking a closer look at the incription in ur rug, I intuitivly get the impression that this may be something else then a date.

The four elements right and left of the "one - and - a - half - rhombic - shapes - that - resemble - a - figure - eight", seem to be intended symetrically mirrored elements. One element more to the lower right corner resembles a bird or chicken to me.

Just to ad some mor palmreading here...

Best regards

Benjamin

Richard Larkin

Hi Benjamin,

I hadn’t paid close attention to the size of your rug. That is a big one, and in an unusual proportion for a Baluch in my experience. All in all, you have acquired a formidable rug, whatever might be the answers to the several questions you’ve raised.

I don’t think the section of your warp ends where the color transferred was formerly a kilim area. If you look at the edge border section of pile, which is missing at the end, it seems clear there was pile at the ends at one time. Anyway, I don’t think it would make any difference as far as color transfer is concerned. Yarn is yarn, and I don’t think the warps know whether they are surrounded by kilim yarn or knot yarn.

I don’t see any sign of widespread tip fading. Maybe just in the purple next to the “X” in your sixth image. In that regard, my experience is that most tip fading is quite pronounced eventually. I would also note that some researchers (e. g., Paul Mushak) have determined through the chemical analysis of dyed wool that both synthetic and natural dyes were occasionally used on the same yarn. One would expect in such cases that the synthetic element would fade at the tips, but the natural wouldn't. It probably happened about as often as excess dye left in the yarn from insufficient rinsing.

As to the lavender colored bits in the leaves, have you scrutinized to see whether those strands are silk? It was not uncommon for Baluch weavers to insert single or random bits of silk in the rug, as a special charm or talisman, some people think.

I am very sorry once again to bring up the notorious “chew test” for cotton. If you chew on a piece of cotton string, you will note that it has an unmistakable feel in the mouth. I find it to be the most reliable method of identifying cotton, if I can get it done without detection by the proper authorities. If you can isolate a section of weft, I recommend you try it. Of course, you will need the usual tetanus shot. And don't swallow.

Following is a front and back view of an Arab Baluch rug with a purple kilim end that has faded to gray on the upper surface. No sign of dye leakage, by the way. Also, the reddish brown color of the corner rosette in the border suffers some surface fade, from a wine red to a brownish red. Like my earlier image, however, the camera flash eliminates some of the effect.



I don't doubt the occasional occurrence of extra fine Arab Baluch rugs. What I think would be unusual for that group is the dense texture and deep warp depression. Perhaps I need to widen my criteria.


Regarding dates and inscriptions, I have seen many rugs with them, but backwards. It suggests that the weaver was copying another rug from the back, and probably that she was illiterate. I assume as well that some copying jobs aren’t particularly accurate, especially by weavers who couldn't read what they were weaving, resulting in the sort of thing we find on your Baluch and my Caucasian. As to Azadi, I believe his policy on dating rugs is too aggressive and ambitious. I think many other observers think so, too. He doesn’t provide a rationale for his dating, but neither does anybody else I can think of.

Here are some pictures of the bleeding balisht that surprised me so much.

The piece is supple and rather fine, with luxurious soft, shiny wool. AND IT BLED LIKE HECK!!!! The color that bled is the "madder red" in the center of the gul. Who would have guessed that?

Rich Larkin

Benjamin Tholen

Dear Richard,

as to the chew test - I dunno how long my last tetanus has been . I did a burn test on a very small fraction only and it smelled and behaved the way I saw on cotton before, but I have to admit it was very little material because I didnt know how to get any without doing damage to the structure.
But as the weft strands also apear to be thinner then the wool and a bit duller I suppose it must be cotton?

Thes lavender strands also appear to be thinner then the wool ones and are very shiny. The tonality is rather "cold" compared to the ohter colors. How could I test if its silk?

I noticed another thing about the red dye: when getting wet it smells a bit of chlorine, like in a public bath. Very probably another sign of being chemical.

To the idea of the weaver copying the date from another rug - would that suggest an attempt of faking an older rug? Would this make any sense for a baluch, which were not supposed to be very high priced Items as far as I know? Or does it hint on a Manufaktur (dunno the english expression) background?

There is another detail: Close to the bottom end the lines of the drawings are displaced for about half a centimeter, probably because the rug had in between been taken from the loom, had been transported, and put up again?
How long would she weave on such a big rug in total?

About ur doubts concerning the arab baluch structure - I have to admit that seraching several sources I didnt find any with depressed warps, but - amongst others - some kurdish belouch with asymetrical knot and heavy warp depression... Just because Jack mentioned something about the selvages resemblig kurdish ones, but I guess kurdish- and kurdish Quchan is another story again, concerning the depressed warps.
Yet because of the similarity in borders and color palette to the arab belouch on spongobongo, plus Jacks convicing comments on them I still cling to the arab - beluch attribution somehow.

I like the colors of ur bleeding baluch, thought the overall palette seems pretty diffrent to this one especially as mine lacks any of the deep, rather dark, "glowing" blue both rugs you show seem to have. In fact there is very, very little blue in the rug at all, limited to a few dots in the trees barberpole like stripes, some small longish symbols in the field and a few detail dots in the borders, but always just tiny bits.

Last but not least - Should I live in darkness from now on, or is it possible that this red color does bleed but still is relatively lightfast?

Plus I wonder if there ever was any Salon dedicated to unclear inscriptions and can be found in the archives?

Thanks again, for all ur skillfull help. You know somtimes I wonder what collecting is about? And besides whatever ego issues it seems to me that the attention u pay to something u collect, the love and affection, is something one should try to get into ones life as much as possible. Even if all the answers we give are wrong, it seems to be a really good to think with affection and care for detail about a piece of art and have the opportunity to share this with others, more knowledgable and willing to share that knowledge.

Well - anyhow - I would really like to find out about the inscription on richards caucasian, maybe u have any picture showing it from the back?

best regards

Benjamin

Jack_Williams

re: dates in rugs - see:

http://www.turkotek.com/misc_00041/dates_language.htm

Baluch-group occasionally wove gibberish - Dad would proudly claim daughter could read and write. Some running of non-fast dye is not from bad dyes, but bad dying, or washing, or mordant.

When putting date in carpet, Baluch often, maybe usually, used persian solar calendar... most people in area celebrate the persian new year - solar date - including Turkmen. Occasionally they also used Chinese year animal symbols... which are all widely undestood in Afghanistan for some reason.

Your rug is quite compeling with spacious pattern ... also quite an enigma with several anomolous structural markers, and hue. It is egnimatic to me the more I look at it. Are you sure about the knots being asymentric open left? Pile split looks similar to that of symmetric knotting, but can't see base.

Wish you had better pictures of field.

Benjamin Tholen

Dear Jack,

I will provide better pictures of the field and pile once I get my good camera back on the week end, wich has a very high resolution, more neutral color reproduction and extreme lightsensitivty allowing to take pictures without flash that show every detail of the structure.

(yet I have to reduce them in size and resolution because otherwise they would be to big to upload. Maybe its better I put them up on my flickr account and just attach the link? This could also be helpfull for this site in general that in addition to low res pictures fitting on this server one might provide higher res ones on an external server licke flickr, to ad more visual substance to discussion concerning structural details?)

Could poorly rinsed dye exsess be the explation why the rug bleeds but shows little tip fading?

Concerning the structure - Im pretty new to this, so maybe Im mistaken.
Yet all my other rugs are symmetrically woven and if I split their pile I can clearly see a knot covering both pile strands, wich is not the case with this one. Here I actually dont really see any knot. Yet the other rugs also have no warp depression and are of coarser weave.
I will provide pictures as soon as I have my proper tools at hand.

About the date - I guess ur information about the use of the solar calendar with belouch weavers would get the date I "extracted" towards a more plausible one of 1893. Yet Its probably more me fantasising about possible meanings, a bit like the father in ur story wanting to be proud of his daughter. - Now I gonna study that article on dates you have been so kind to post.

Thanks lot again for ur great help,
I will provide the pictures on the weekend,

best regards

benjamin

Steve Price

Hi Benjamin

The problem isn't that high resolution images are too big to upload - we have loads of server space. High resolution images take forever to download for readers on slow connections, and the increased resolution is pointless because most computer monitors are pretty low resolution devices and can't display the increased resolution in the big files anyway.

Large file dimensions create other problems: they extend the message window horizontally and force people to scroll back and forth to read the text. Most people find that pretty irritating.

Some discussions get archived, although most Show and Tell threads just get deleted after a period of inactivity. Images that display in the messages get imported when we archive messages, but if there's only a hypertext link to an external image, the link will only take the reader to the image until the image file is removed from wherever it is.

For showing fine detail, the best approach is to crop the detail of interest from a high resolution JPG, rather than to try to post an enormous high resolution JPG in its entirety.

Regards

Steve Price

Benjamin Tholen

Dear Steve,

that sounds very resonable. So I will do the following: Try to use a lens as macro as I can get and use a format thats rather horizontal then vertical in its extension. Still I think if I use a higher res camera, the jpgs I can create will show better detail no matter how big the final jpg is...
What dimensions would be good for the final jpg?

Regarding previous threads I was rahter wondering if there ever has been anything like a saloon on woven inscriptions/dates...
... like the one Jack kindly posted.

Is it ok for u if I send the pictures of field and pile base to U as before?

Best
Benjamin

Steve Price

Hi Benjamin

We try to keep the image sizes to no greater than 600 pixels wide for landscape format, no greater than 500 pixels wide for portrait format. This stays comfortably within the message window and doesn't require scrolling side to side to read the text.

I always shoot photos with the highest resolution my cameras allow - it's easy to compress the JPGs and reduce the file sizes.

As for resolution, I have a pretty good monitor. It's 15 inches wide and has a maximum of 1280 pixels in the horizontal direction. That's about 85 pixels per inch. No matter how fine the resolution of a JPG is, my screen can't display more than 85 pixels per inch. My scanner, not an especially high end model, makes JPG files with 300 pixels per inch. That's about 3.5 times as many as my monitor can display, so compressing the JPGs of scanned images to 30% of what came off the scanner has no effect on what I see on my monitor (the effect would be very obvious if I printed the image on high quality glossy paper, of course). The resolutions on images coming straight out of most digital cameras nowadays are much higher than the 85 pixels per inch that maxes out my monitor, too.

Of course, please do continue to send me image files. I'll do what needs to be done with them and send you instructions for making them display in a message.

Regards

Steve Price

PS - I'm not sure whether we've ever done a Salon on inscriptions and dates, although the topic of dates comes up often. A Google search from our Archive page will find whatever is in there.

PPS - My monitor at home puts 1980 pixels onto a 20 inch width, a little less than 100 pixels per inch

Richard Larkin

Hi Benjamin,

Here's the back view of the inscription on my Caucasian prayer rug. For the record, the little cartouche is smaller than I originally mentioned. About 1.75 in. [4.5 cm] x 2.25 in. [5.5 cm].



If you can make anything coherent out of that, you are a better man than I. My theory is that it is the work of an illiterate weaver who approximated written lines as she dimly understood them. The "8" represents a substantial shape that she was able to use as the centerpiece for her grand oeuvre. I have the feeling such bogus inscriptions were inserted to give the rug a certain elevated prestige.

I don't want to spoil your fun in researching inscriptions and pseudo-inscriptions, or maybe that would be faux inscriptions. But I would say that in the many years I have been fooling with rugs, I have probably seen as many entries that looked like unsuccessful attempts at inscriptions, like our two rugs exemplify, as I have seen readable ones.

Following is something I have seen often enough on rugs, probably most often on Baluch rugs.





As you can see, it seems like an attempt to write 1333, but each numeral "3" has an extra crest. I have encountered it a number of times, and I have concluded that there must have been a conspicuous or widely available source of some kind for the error, that would be repeated by the copying weaver. I don't know what the significance of that year might have been, either. If it was intended to be the lunar calendar, it was about 1915. If it was the solar calendar, it was about 1952-1955 (I used two different conversion methods, and it is in there somewhere).

I have read the many T'Tek posts about the competing calendars, and the whole thing makes my teeth itch. It was easier when I was ignorant, and assumed they were all talking about the Islamic lunar calendar. Anyway, I can think of at least one Baluch prayer rug owned by a friend of mine that has the above mis-written date of 1333 that was in their possession as an obviously well-used rug in the 1950's. So, I don't know what to say about Jack's theory that the Baluch would have dated their rugs by the solar calendar. Of course, if they were illiterate weavers simply copying something, they could just as well have used the Chinese calendar.

Rich Larkin

Jack_Williams

Re: We covered this all thoroughly in this line:

http://www.turkotek.com/misc_00061/dating.htm

- Baluch et. al. use of Persian dates especially weaving for sale during noruz;
- Iran, Turkey official switch to solar calandar in 1925, Afganistan in 1952;
- Afghanistan always used persian solar calandar\;
- Chinese year-of-animal use, etc.
- Variations in number symbols;
- Baluch-group weaving of gibberish;

etc.

Frank Martin Diehr

Hello Baluchotekkies,

Just popping in to say welcome back to Jack, and how nice it is to see a freshly infected Balooney posting! Benjamin, if the rug bug bite gets any worse, you might want to get in touch with the German speaking Baluch collector group, just let me know (see Hali online and archive for reports on some of our meetings; there are doctors and carers amongst us ... lots of hopeless cases, you've been warned!)
I am with Jack on your rug, and would guess it to be from around 1930, which would still be in line with the dealer's story. Such purple (silk or cotton) sprinkles are not at all uncommon, and often the dye seems synthetic.

Frank

__________________
This is just an uneducated guess!

Benjamin Tholen

Hello Everybody,

it took me a while being lost in decryption. Yet I have not been able to get anything out of it that would make sense. Still, from what I read in the articles u recommended, I am never the less convinced that this inscription was at least intended to be a date. (also taking into account the line and dot below the x - symbol)

Assuming some dots being displaced because the weaver noticed that otherwise two figueres would "stick" together as one, and the "6" being a mirrored "2", I read the numbers 2 2 7 1 and a dot, (maybe 0) - wich dont combine to any plausible date no matter if you mirror read them or not. As mentioned before the only plausible date u could arrange them to would be a 1272, an applying the solar callendar as suggested, this would mean a date close enough to 1900 to be possible, but all in all it just take too many tiwists and turns to get there, so I go for the gibberish - explanation or the attempt maybe to copy a date from an possibly older rug?

On Richards Inscription:

Seeing the back makes me even more confident that something else then a date is being framed by the cartouch. The signs left and right from the rhombes (resembling a figure eight), seem to be symetrically mirrored, there are just a few displaced knots on the left side.
Among the other things in the field, one of them obviously seems to be a bird of some kind. So unless this means something like "year of the chicken" (if it exists) I suppose that its rather some kind of picture being framed there. yet why should symbols/pictures be framed by a carouche? Any Idea anybody?

Now to help analysis of the questionable structre of my baluch I tried to take pictures of the field and the knot structure that are more suitable and steve was so kind to upload them within no time - thanks!

first comes a picture of the entire field again:




ps.

Dear Frank, thanks a lot for the offer, I would be really happy to get in touch indeed...

best Benjamin

Benjamin Tholen

... and here come the other pictures.

two other more detailed of the field:





In the second picture the weaving error (moving loom?) is clearly visible on the white border dots near the bottom.

On the other fringe, as mentioned before there is also a dark color bleed next to the red:



Yet comparing the back and front of the rug, wich I tried to make easy in the next picture, doesnt show much diffrence (fading) in colors:



But on the base of the pile, it seems to be red color stain as well:



There also is some tip fading on the aubergine visible but this pile is from the borders very close to the decimated top end of the rug, so Id rather call this abrash?
Jack, I hope this picture will provide the information needed to clarify if my attribution of an asymetrc knot open left was right? Or should I provide anything else?

And finally a picture from the backside of the magenta strands in the leave - though not all of them seem to be visible from the back.
Anybody any idea how I could determine wether its silk or cotton? Do I have to burn some of it? Or chew on it? (Both would involve having to remove a pit of the few strands...)



So I hope these pictures will help and again I´d really appreciate to hear any of ur comments if u find time.

best

benjamin

ps. I should take franks addiction warning serious I guess - some people in my closer vicinity already think I got nuts - and she tends to understand a lot usually And Frank - ist there any copy of "the dirty dozen" available in germany despite in the ethological museum in berlin? Amazon doesnt seem to list it...

Chuck Wagner

Hi Benjamin,

I think I agree with age estimates stated earlier that tend toward the mid-20th century, possibly up into the 1960's. For me it is a combination of the border designs and the dye job that place your rug in that time frame. There are some odd color transitions in the knots, visible in your image where the pile is folded open to verify open-left. This rug may have been washed after it was faded, allowing loose red dye to add pink tips to blue pile.

I would also definitely like to say Hi! to Jack, and note that I'm glad to see he still has his head up and locked.

Regards
Chuck Wagner

Rich Larkin

Hi Benjamin,

The shift in the border line ("weaving error") is a very common phenomenon in these rugs.

Your latest pictures make me reassess your rug. I think several of the dyes are synthetic, and relatively modern ones. The green, for example. I think the yarns that are light red at the top and deep red or purple at the roots represent faded tips. I think Chuck is on the right track for age.

Rich Larkin

Benjamin Tholen

Hello everybody,

Just returning from what they call "nightlive" in Kreuzberg, that wasnt quite the kind of surprise u wish for -
that must be why they say u shouldnt leave ur baby alone at home when u go out dancing

Well I dunno about the tip fading. I choose this area close to the fringe to take the picture because that is the place where u could find some more obvious then anywhere else. I didnt relate it to the influence of light but rather physical abrash. The green then again was the first color that made me suspicious in the very beginning because of being so even. Yet finding some yellow at the very tips of some geen pile made me relax. So now we are back to the worst of my expectations.

The whole thing reminds me of a line that has been crucial to my life before:
After having fun being an uneducated filmmaker I got accepted at what was then supposed to be germanys best film shool. Presenting my script for the film I was supposed to shoot at the end of the year they told me: "KILL YOUR DARLINGS!"
- Meaning that u should let go of any Ideas that dont belong in the story you want to tell no matter how much u like them (or especially if u like them). the result was - a serious writers block for the next two years
Yet I gained knowledge.
This is a bit like that.
I just should have sticked to the old camera (like shooting on HD does just one thing - show bad make up, but surely doenst make better movies)
So I should use some phantasy to get things back in track.
After thinking about this desaster for some very quite minutes, I found the explanation that finally brings everything in line:

The Inscription on the rug is a date. from the future. That is how the carpet could have been in famly possesion for 80 years (as the dealer claims) and still be from the 60s. Doesnt make sense? Well let me explain quantum physics: The observer influences the "facts" by observing. This rug has been woven in 1855 (0,001% probability), 1894 (3% Probability), 1910 - 30 (30% probabilty), the 60s (59%) and past 2012 (- 99,9%) at the same "time"
More "esoteric" and related to my view of this rug: You see what You expect(want) to see

No serious. Its hard to take for me, but maybe chuck is right.
What I can still say is that any tip fading is slight. I dont see pink tips at the blue pile though. Unless u mean the "lavender" strands in the leave, but they are entire strands of a diffrent material and defenitly not just tips that caught some loose dye.
Well, I wouldnt have raised the whole Issue If I didnt have the same feeling about the overall impression of the rug as chuck in the first place. Strange enuff though the dealer lied to me about the age, making up this "family story" because as mentioned before: So far they never made any claims if they were uncertain of age, as far as I observed it. In these cases (and with more expencive pieces) they just wrote: age unknown.

So I remain confused - but on a more educated level I guess : I have other rugs with chemical dyes in it and they look entirely diffrent. Especially regarding the effect daylight at diffrent times of the day does on the colors, wich is very nice on this one and the kurdidh one I have that is supposed to have all natural colors.

So once again, thanks for all the help and shared knowlede, even if it makes you sad sometimes.

I will draw the shades now to get some sleep and prevent my rug from fading entirely

Best regards and good night to everybody

Benjamin

Pierre Galafassi

Hi all,
I think Rich is probably right. If the green shade is really close to what the picture shows it is indeed a trifle too bright and too yellow and hardly feasible with natural dyes (indigo-based).
More likely to be based on a modern chromophore called Copper-phtalocyanine. If true this would indicate the 1930's as earliest possible date.
A shade based on saxon blue (invented in the middle of the eighteenth century) could be borderline possible too, but then we should observe evidences of poor light- and wet-fastness).
This being said, Benjamin, this is a very interesting and puzzling rug.
Pierre

Benjamin Tholen

Dear Pierre and everybody,

concerning the colors:
working in fotoproduction sometimes I just know how hard it is to claibrate a color space... (especially with tears in ur eyes )
Currently my system is set up in a way, that what my screen displays more or less matches what my photo printers are able to print.
Now looking at the pichtures on a PC in an Internet café, the colors seem far more saturated and bright than intended, because generating the jpg I tried to make the colors on my screen match my real life perception. The green in facht isnt very yellow, compared to my other rugs (where its supposedly dyed with indigo), but rather dark and bluish Id say, yet just very, very even, too even for my taste. Not all the greens maybe but surely the one in the tree of life leaves...

Asuming that baluch weavers started to use synthetics rather late, a chem dye availbale in the 30s at first will probalby not have been used by them until a much later date?

Best

Benjamin

Pierre Galafassi

Indeed Benjamin, it requires a very good dyer to avoid abrash in indigo-based greens (and pale to middle blues) when using pre-industrial dyeing equipment. It's easier on modern yarn dyeing machines. I agree: the green shade of the leaves is suspiciously level and hints at factory dyeing. (By the way, the synth. copper-phtalocyanin blue dyes used for rather bright greens are also hard to get level on wool yarn, under artisanal dyeing conditions).

As mentioned by Chuck, the aubergine shade which "tip-faded" to a pink is also puzzling. This effect does not fit well with the light-fading behavior expected of a cochineal-based aubergine (Al & Fe mordant) nor of an indigo+madder recipe. To obtain this peculiar effect I would have made the aubergine shade with a mix of two synthetic dyes (not part of the 1:1 Cr complex range mostly used by wool yarn dyers since the 1920's): a blue sensitive to chem bleach and a red with a better (normal) resistance to bleach. Then finishing the rug with a superficial chemical treatment.

Best
Pierre

Jack_Williams

Interesting comments, especially about dying. I’ve learned some new things. Thanks.

Re: Tip color change – I wonder when was the last time this rug was washed?

Tip fading is not necessarily an absolute marker for synthetic dyes. It happens in natural dyes too because sunlight. Sunlight usually acts to change home-made greens toward blue, darkening the color effect, because the yellow components are usually not very resistant to light. This is true across the region.

Furthermore, longish pile will usually visually present a lighter color than the roots or back because of pile-end diffusion. As the pile wears, the color should become more vivid due to the compression of the strands of the knots, offset by natural sunlight-softening.

Baluch-group loves purple, which can be a combo of red and blue. Blue is usually a relatively fast color compared to red. Therefore in this rug the apparent root vs tip color change is a little odd.

Re: Picture – This rug seems to have excellent wool that highly reflects the light from the flash. I’ve found it is best to photo Baluch-group in natural or incandescent light, with no flash, then adjust the brightness-contrast somewhat.

But… digital cameras all seem to enhance the “brightness” of blues-greens, regardless of adjustment. Mechanically I don’t know why that is, but I do suggest taking that quirk into account especially when viewing Baluch-group rugs on the net (E-bay for instances). Blues are the Cadillac currency by which to judge a Baluch, and are invariably lightened and brightened by the camera, and sometimes by the seller.

Re: Knot – I’m at sea on the close up picture of the knots of this rug. It looks like the latest picture is taken with the rug parted along a warp. What we need is the same close-up parted along a weft looking down-grain, and another looking up grain, to see the base of the knot. With the deep warp depression of this rug, it may be harder to determine. I cannot explain why I have the strange idea that this may possibly be woven with symmetric knot?

Re: Open-left or right – After determining the knot is asymmetric, one easy way (but not fool-proof) is to just simply rub your hand along the warps to determine “bottom,” (against the grain is bottom). Then rub your hand along the wefts to determine left-right grain. Against the grain is usually the direction of “open”.

Re: Age – There are some good posts here about the dyes. But still the weaving of this rug speaks to me of some age. The spacious pattern does not seem to correspond with post-WWII tendency toward crowding the fields and borders. The borders are restrained, and the little interior semi-border, field filler, has a Arab-Baluch-Afshar look. The repairs, loss of end weave, plus the seeming hand-carded and spun wool, irregularities, quality of wool, etc., just doesn’t look very village-modern (post WW-II to 1980).

Re: Design – the field design seems to me to be fairly unique. The Baluch-group tree rugs usually use the serrated leaf of the Plane tree… but this is a different leaf entirely. It is so different I’ve wondered about its “Baluch-o-ness.” The whole field design has an oddly Turcoman look to it, as do some of the structural elements.

Re: Woven date – I would suspect that the woven gibberish is intended to be a date. Check the line previously linked for an "indecipherable" date on one of Chuck Wagner’s rugs … (I recommend reading that line in its entirety) Gene’s guys in Afghanistan were able to come to a consensus about that date despite its lack of clarity. Close-up picture of back of inscription would help.

Re: Baluch-o-theraphy - I recommend a 12 step group support program sooner rather than later. Prevention of disease is easier than cure.

Regards to all, Jack

Richard Larkin

Hi Jack,

I'm pretty much in step with everything you say, along the lines that this rug is ambiguous as to age indicia: Some features suggest more recent manufacture, but some argue for earlier manufacture. I'm not so sure I would be betting on Turkoman provenance as such, but "Baluch" itself is a term that encloses a whole motley gaggle of producers.

Pierre,

You mentioned the possibility of "...finishing the rug with a superficial chemical treatment." Earlier in the thread, Benjamin wondered out loud (or in print, anyway) whether the high gloss of his rug could possibly have artificial support. In general, one often finds latish Baluch group weaving, as well as others, with a very glossy finish. I have sometimes wondered whether in some cases this effect was enhanced by some artificial process. Do you have a confident sense of what you are looking at in this regard when you encounter such rugs? Are you very familiar with the processes involved, what results they produce, and whether the long term effects are different from the immediate effects?

Many of the early 20th century writers complained that most Baluch rugs in particular from that period were subjected to chemical washing, particularly those coming into New York. Meanwhile, I have found through the years many Baluch rugs that I would judge to be early 20th century that were dull, dry, lifeless and worn; and I have surmised that they were the (barely) surviving casualties of the treatment of that period.

Rich Larkin

Pierre Galafassi

Hi Rich,

I am afraid that I can't help much since I am not at all familiar with the specific chemical recipes used by orient rug makers and even less with their hypothetical effect on wool gloss.
The fact that the rug makers or dealers used recipes having a bleaching effect on (some) dyes (and still are using them) is pretty well established though.
Chemical treatments normally used to control "felting" of wool textiles, or to make them machine washable, probably could modify the optical properties (gloss, brightness) of the wool yarn as well, since they cover or reduce the size of the superficial wool scales. But I am walking on too thin ice here.
Benjamin mentioned a chlorine smell. This could suggest that some yarns (some shades) have been "chlorinated": a very old and frequently used anti-felting (and dye bleaching-) process.

Best
Pierre

Benjamin Tholen

Hello Everybody,

I will try to post some addtional pictures of pile split as suggested by Jack tomorrow. For now I just want to try and quickly answer a few of the questions that came up:

Re Pictures: the pictures have not been taken with a flash. The shine, especially on the borders, comes from daylight falling in through the window.
Regarding the colors, espacially the green: The green usually is so dark that it seems nearly black/blue unless, as in these Pictures, a lot of daylight is falling on the pile. Still the green appears brighter on the pics than in reality.
I will try to get some shots in more indirect light. There is also another shade of green in one of the ashik like field fillers, that is more pale and shows obvious abrash. I will provide these pictures as well.

Re: washing. I asked the dealer (via e mail) because I was worried when first noticing the clorine smell after the rug got a bit wet. His answer was, that I shouldnt worry, because: all their rugs leave the house being washed !(with chlorine? ) The smell is noticable as soon as the rug gets wet.

Re: Structure - Forgive me. I did wrong. I mixed up top and bottom I guess. Following Jacks Instruction the pile must be open right. Yet I still believe its asymetric, at least it looks very diffrent from my other symetrically knotted rugs.
The pile on the picture was split parralel to/ along the wefts, wich seemed easier then along the warps. I will take pictures in both directions now and use white pile so the knots will be more obvious. I just checked again: it seems that with each pair of strands making a knot there is one without and one with a very tiny knot.

Re Fading: Could the very dense and long pile be a reason why the fading mostly only concerns the very tips? (its more ponounced on the pile in the picture because the pile is close to the reduced border)

I will answer in detail to all this intresting thoughts tomorrow after work and provide better pictures as well.

gute nacht und liebe grüße
best

benjamin

Jack_Williams

I thought I would post this because it further defines the use of the solar calendar in Iran and Afghanistan, the common use of the Chinese duodecennial animal-year reference in the Persian sphere of influence, etc.

I think it likely that most dates in the Persian sphere of influence were mostly solar year based, except perhaps rugs donated to shrines or mosques.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_calendars

Persian-calandar; Modern calendar (Solar Hejri)
[edit] In Iran

On 21 February 1911, the second Persian parliament adopted as the official calendar of Iran the Jalālī solar calendar with months bearing the names of the twelve constellations of the zodiac and the years named for the animals of the duodecennial cycle; it remained in use until 1925.[7]

The present Iranian calendar was legally adopted on 31 March 1925, under the early Pahlavi dynasty. The law said that the first day of the year should be the first day of spring in "the true solar year", "as it has been" (کماکان). It also fixed the number of days in each month, which previously varied by year with the tropical zodiac. It revived the ancient Persian names, which are still used. It specified the origin of the calendar (Hegira of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina in 622 CE). It also deprecated the 12-year cycles of the Chinese-Uighur calendar which were not officially sanctioned but were commonly used.

[edit] ... In Afghanistan
Afghanistan legally adopted the official Jalali calendar in 1922[7] but with different month names. The Persian language in Afghanistan uses Dari names of the zodiacal signs, while the Pashto language in Afghanistan uses the Pashto names of the zodiacal signs. The Persian calendar is the official calendar of the government of Afghanistan, and all national holidays and administrative issues are fixed according to the Persian calendar.

Benjamin Tholen

Hello to Everybody,

Taking the advice to look at as many old rugs in reality as possible I made a trip to the museum of islmaic art in berlin today. They display several rugs, most of them not of nomadic origin Id say, very large, and mostly dated far before the 19th century.
What I found amazing was that with a lot of them, especially the ones that still had pretty thick pile, there were some colors I wouldnt have guessed to be natural because of their intesity and very even coverage of the pile. Not much of abrash on a lot of them. Yet they will have been produced under very diffrent circumstances then a nomad rug.

A quick note on the inscription: In one of the archived posts (beat me wich one) I found pretty similar twists and turns that had been done on the numbers to get any reasonable date out of it. I also discoverd that with some rugs the inwoven date has been mirrored and appears on both sides of the rug, one time written backwards.
Now nearly opposite from what I suppose to be a date there is another "X"like symbol with something written under it - just a long line of little x´s - like u xed out something - what obviously doenst make sense on a rug, but still strange. If u look closely U can see it on the last picture of the field I provided in my previous post, but it should also appear in my original post, was well as a picture of the back of the inscription. For convinience, here they come again:

So again I will provide some pictures attempting to clarify structure and maybe color issues. I took special care to get the right color match for most users, so the screencolors should come very close to the real ones, but there is no certainty on that.
Im afraid I didnt really get what "against the grain means". I guessed and tryed to take pictures angled more towards the top and more downwards.
I also tried to cover the pile of as many diffrent colors as possible.

Yet I´d like to start with another one of the field, that should show the range of diffrent green shades in the rug (in the leaf and paler green to aubergine in the ashik symbol):



And here comes a pile split along the weft right thru the ashik:



and another thru the tree and leaves:



The tips of the blue are obviously very faded. Yet I have read that indigo (in jeans as well as woolpile) just isnt very fast to physical abrash - it gets worn of more easy then other colors. So opposite to the effect of the greens getting bluer because the yellow fades faster, I have heard of the opposite, a green pile with yellow tips, because the indigo wears down much faster. Here is a picture of yellow tip´ed green in my other rug (supposed to have natural colors):



This one is taken from a part of the pile where I hoped to cover morst of the rugs colors in one shot, for comparison:



and then diffent angles from one spot:

and finally, white pile where I suppose the visibilty of the knots should be best:

This one has been taken with the rug foldet along the warps. It shows the little white knot on one strand of each pair. the second strand coverd by the one in front does not have any knot.
The last Picture I have is one of a color change in the border from a aubergine shade to a more pinkish shade - not gradual but rather abrubt I´d say.



This should be it for now. I will have to rest my aching back, cause I brought home half a ton of books on rugs from the state library. Lets have a look if I find a hint in any of them...

Pierre - could u tell me more about this "chlorination" process and when and where it was mostly used?

Jack - or whoever has an idea - do u know where I might find more about arab-afshar-baluch? Text or pictures?

Thanks a lot!

best

Benjamin

Pierre Galafassi

Hi Benjamin,

Quote Benjamin: «..Pierre - could u tell me more about this "chlorination" process and when and where it was mostly used?..»

Chlorination is a wool treatment using, as the name implies, chlorine. Textile chemical treatments are not my area of expertise (I am a «dye-mono-maniac», sorry), thus I can’t supply details about the various recipes involved and their relative effect on bleaching of natural (un-dyed) wool nor on other optical properties of the fiber.
I am quite positive though about the fact that were chlorination used on a dyed fiber it would wreak havoc on many natural and synthetic dyes («bleaching» them to a certain extend ot totally).
I do also believe that the normal use of chlorination was to take the edge off wool scales and thus reducing «felting». The process was used only on still un-dyed wool.
My guess is that chlorination might have been one of the processes misused by rug makers on finished rugs to make them look older. Other Turkotekers can surely give much more competent informations about this.

I am not able to tell you when wool chlorination was first used for a legitimate purpose and even less when people started to misuse it to «age» rugs. Chlorine and similar oxidant chemicals were already available during most of the nineteen century, but that does not necessarily mean that it was used that early, for either legitimate or less legitimate purposes.
Jack mentioned a few days ago that early 20th century Baluch rugs often got a chemical treatment and that it had a detrimental effect on the wool fiber. (Which is indeed highly likely).
If your rug still has a strong chlorine smell, it probably indicates that the treatment is fairly recent. IMHO it would probably be safer to rinse it repeatedly in cold water to avoid further de-polymerization of the wool).

Your newest close views (pics 4 & 7) show several cases of tip fading (blue shade, red shade and aubergine-brown shade for example) which cannot be explained by normal, light-induced fading. They clearly point the finger at a chemical bleaching treatment applied on the rug surface. The chlorine smell indicates an incomplete rinsing of the chemical.

Quote Benjamin: «..... The tips of the blue are obviously very faded. Yet I have read that indigo (in jeans as well as wool pile) just isn't very fast to physical abrash - it gets worn of more easy then other colors»....

This belief is due to a frequent confusion between an indigo / denim dyeing process on cotton and an indigo wool dyeing process.
Cotton denim yarn is dyed cold in a multi «dip-and-air» process (6-8 successive «dip-and-air» operations), each «dip» being very short. This is made on purpose to obtain a very specific dye distribution on the cotton "bundle" of fibers: only the outside fibers being dyed (besides, the dyeing of each single fiber is what we call a «ring dyeing), while inside of the fibre bundle the fibers remain colorless. Fig 1.



This is necessary to obtain the famous jeans looks after «stone washing» and the typical house-washing and wearing properties. In this denim dyeing process a significant (but still minor) part of the indigo dye can even sit on the surface of the fibre bundle.

In indigo wool dyeing (including pre-industrial, artisanal or nomad dyeing operations), the temperature is typically higher (40°C-60°C) and each dipping is much longer. The «leuco-indigo» (the reduced form of indigo, soluble in water), being a small molecule, penetrates quite thoroughly into the fibre and gets blocked inside during each airing. (Fig 2).



Ring dyeing and deposit of indigo pigment on the wool surface are only minor occurrences. Sure, a moronic indigo dyer could unwittingly obtain larger surface deposits of indigo pigment, but it must have been a relatively rare case indeed (it is claimed that even nomads usually bought or bartered their blue wool from specialists).
On wool indigo has a good light fastness. Light-induced fading of (indigo) blue on a rug is unlikely.

Thus:
- Poor rubbing fastness of properly indigo-dyed wool is not a credible hypothesis.
- Indigo-dyed wool would never suffer more from a light-induced fading than (for example) any natural red. Indeed the contrary is true.

I am afraid this looong post has put most readers to sleep.
Shhhht! Lassen wir die Herren ruhig schlafen.
Regards
Pierre

Benjamin Tholen

Dear Pierre,

thanks for the hints. If the chemical treatment was very recent, could it be connected to the "wash" the dealer claimed it has recieved before leaving the house?

I just got myself a book on dyes called "Färbepflanzen und Pflanzenfarben" by the authors Roth, Kormann, Schweppe from the libraray -
can you recomend it, or anything else worth reading?

Does the chemical treatmend, and the date giving by the dealer including the story of the rug having been in family posession for neraly 80 years, suggest some kind of age related forgery?

Or could it just be that they use a chemical to rinse the rugs that smells of chlorine? (the smell is only noticable if the rug gets wet)
I have read that anilin colors smell very nasty if rubbed with a wet piece of cloth - cpould it be that kind of smell?


Best regards
Benjamin

Jack_Williams

Pierre is right on about the general fastness of indigo on wool. Indeed the "blue wool test" is the standard for determining the permanence of the colors of paints (artistic) which are judged on a much longer scale than rug-colors. Something is amiss here.

Somewhere I have a reference for test of red dye that involves rubbed spittle and ammonia smell. I thought that smell indicated cochineal … maybe not.

You asked about rug washing. Interesting, here is another possible source of ammonia odor from cleaning and washing carpets, from the excellent site (linked) p. 2, regarding dye identification…

http://cool.conservation-us.org/coolaic/jaic/articles/jaic19-01-003_indx.html

“A SMALL SAMPLE of the colored fabric is first boiled in a 1% ammonia solution, in order to remove soil and finishes. Most natural dyes do not run when subjected to this treatment, since they are usually mordant dyes, that is to say they are present in the fabric as insoluble lakes. Indigo is also fast to dilute ammonia. Most of the earlier synthetic dyes made prior to the end of the 19th century run considerably. The same observation is made by textile restorers when they wash carpets with anionic surfactants in ammoniacal solution: if they see that no dye runs they draw conclusions about the presence of natural or synthetic dyes.”

I may post a primer for Ferdous Arab-Baluch rugs with a bunch of pictures. I cannot determine the knot in your rug, probably because of the deep offset. But the field design has some elements that are usually markers for Ferdous. I cannot explain the weave though.

Pierre Galafassi

Best regards
Pierre

Jack_Williams

Good Morning Benjamin:

Thanks for the close ups, but I am having trouble determining the knot in your rug, probably because of the warp depression. Also re: washing, ask the dealer what he uses to wash his rugs. There are some ammonia based cleaning agents used on antique fabrics (see previous post).

But in the meantime, because your rug may (or may not) fall into this catagory, here is a short primer on “Ferdous” rugs, aka “Arab-Baluch-Afshar” rugs, These may be the most addictive rugs in all of Baluch-dom – there is no known cure – you have been warned. Even Boucher fell under their spell toward the end of his collecting life.



There has not been a Salon about Ferdous-group rugs, nor has there been a definitive article or study in the literature that I’ve found. About the best original discussion was in The Persian Carpet, by Edwards. He may have been the only researcher to actually visit the area. Everyone else seems to mostly repeat the same-old bromides, or quote the lore of some city rug bazaar, often Herat, which “lore” is usually very wrong especially about Baluch.

In my opinion, … “Ferdous” rugs have some distinctive design characteristics. They frequently have certain type of borders … the “wandering vine,” and a little “tree-flag” outline within the field itself. Also occasionally the incorporation of a specific “half-gul” in a border echoes the same distinctive gul-design used in the field.







Another aspect of “Ferdous-Arab-Baluch” is “tonality” or “palette.” The borders often have a “soft” red which combined with frequent use of camel field produces a uncommonly pleasing aura, especially when combined with Kordi-Ashar light blue.





Another quality attributed to Ferdous rugs are fields with decorative flowery garden motifs, some with Herati-patterns. These were supposedly most popular with Persian Gulf Arabs.





Structurally, double-weft, a majority seem to have a flat back, with only minor warp depression (though this is not an absolute), but in other respects they emit a overall aura of “Baluch-group.” They tend to be woven with asymmetric open-right knots, but some have open-left knots. Knotting density seems to be quite variable with some fine weaves, but probably most common is 60-80 kpsi.

I have long suspected a connection between Ferdous rugs and “Afshar” influence. Tom Cole refers to this obliquely and attributes these two rugs to “Arab-Baluch-Afshar,” based on construction and subject matter. Of course this does not address the burning question of “who are the Afshar?” (I could tell you, but then I’d have to….).





The Afshar connection is also sometimes seen in size ratio as the “Afshar” often have a distinctive length-width ratio (5/4). Here is an awesome archaic-looking “Ferdous” rug that has obvious Afshar elements. It is one of two rugs in this thesis that I still kick myself for not buying.





Edwards mentioned that in the 1920s some Afshar carpets were sent to several weaving Baluch groups to encourage diversification of designs, with good results. Recently I’ve found some solid literature references to nomadic Afshar within Baluch-area of Khorrisan-Seistan who influenced Baluch designs…but seemingly not vice versa.

Here are two more rugs that may or may not be "Ferdous-Arab-Baluch-Afshar…” I just like them. Final note: Bahlul-baluch (actually they are probably Afshar), Kordi-baluch, Kordi-Afshar rugs can echo Ferdous-Arab-Baluch rugs, but use mostly symmetric knoting and are of a little less fine density.

Unregistered

As we can see, the popular attribution of rugs to “Ferdous” covers a pretty diverse set of characteristics. And god only knows if these characteristics are unique to that area.

One other class of rugs by popular clamor is usually assigned to “Ferdous” or some combo of Arab-Baluch-Afshar. These are Baluch pictorial rugs of a certain type. Here are two examples. The first is interesting in the context of Benjamin’s rug because it has unusually long pile, gray wefts, significant depressed warp, and a border “tonality” that mirrors Benjamin’s rug.









But this rug is 1950s-60s (most likely) and I have no idea were it was really woven… I like it though… Persian knights, cavalry charge, cannon balls, chickens and peacocks scattering, a couple of snakes crawling around….

I’m not at all sure about who attributed these pictorial rugs to the Ferdous area, and what evidence there is for that attribution. So far as I know, Edwards didn’t mention these rugs.

There is another class of pictorial Baluch rugs that feature Indian themes complete with half-naked girls, turbaned nabobs, exotic animals in a jungle, and/or blond/redheaded women, not to mention peacocks etc. Though these have been attributed to “Seistan,” I doubt their provenance is well established.

The thing about Baluch-world is how little on-site research was done, and now probably cannot be done. Information sourced mostly from the rug bazaar cannot be trusted.

Frank Martin Diehr

Hi Jack,

some nice ones in there, and yes, you are quite right in kicking yourself for letting the best one get away (and no, I haven't got it, damn.)

Frank

p.s. Incidentally, the German speaking Baluch collector meeting two or three years ago had a feature on Ferdows "Arab" Baluch rugs. The indeed show Afshar and Kordi influence. Wegner wrote a little about them, but since I generally do not really like them (and even forgot to bring the two or three I own to the meeting), I can not contribute much. However, one of us gave a little talk about them, putting together characteristics and open questions, but I don't know where the minutes are right now, and if anyone took pictures of the 30 or so "Arabs" at the meeting.

__________________
This is just an uneducated guess!

James Blanchard

Hi all,

I have to admit that I've also never become overly enamoured with the "Ferdows" Baluch rugs. However, here is a variant that I saw some years back that I sometimes wish I had purchased. It has the unmistakable design, but the white field gives it a different aesthetic, I think.

James

Chuck Wagner

Hi all,

Here's some detail from a figural Ferdows rug I own (scene from the Khosrow and Shireen saga):



The structure is typical of this type but rather different from the rug under discussion - very little warp depression. It does have cotton wefts:



Regards,
Chuck Wagner

Dinie Gootjes

Hi Benjamin and all,

All Arab Baluch rugs shown here seem to be small mats and bigger. I have two that I believe to be bag faces. The first one is all wool and has asymmetrical knots open to the left, but on the ground of colour (the typical red and the clear middle blue) and design I think it fits in the group. As you can see in the second picture, this one has fairly complete warp depression, but this is mainly on the right side of the rug, especially near the side border. For the rest the back is flat .






The second rug is fairly large, roughly 80 x 83 cm/ 3'8" x 3'9", I am not sure whether this was originally a small rug or a large khorjin. It is a coarse beastie, but not unpleasant. Knots open right, warps unbleached cotton, wefts partly greyish brown cotton, partly cotton twined together with a strand of goat hair. I would never have noticed if there was not a hole near the bottom where both are clearly visible.





The Khosrow and Shirin rugs are funny. Here are a few in a collage our son once made for me. Yours is there too, Chuck. All different parts of the story, though the first and the third (ours) from the right are virtually the same. The one Jack already showed, bottom left, looks older to me, with more expressive drawing and a border without the blockiness of the others.



As to their attribution to the Ferdows area, I found in my notes that John Howe said in a talk about the colour blue in textiles (maybe in the T'Tek archives?): "Tanavoli devoted a book to such rugs and includes several similar examples. They are nearly always white ground with this same spacious border. There are lots of Baluch and Arabs in Firdowz who weave, but Tanavoli says that these pictorial pieces are likely woven by other Persian weavers there." At least Tanavoli is someone who is 'on site', but no hard facts: "are likely woven by...".

From the description of a similar rug from a Sotheby's auction: "The origin of rugs of this group is a matter of some contention. Julian Homer and more recently Dennis Woodman have pointed to a Beluch attribution (see Hali, issue 120, p. 13), but Tom Cole (Hali, issue 117, pp. 82-86, fig. 7) has suggested an Afshar origin." I have not been able to find these Hali magazines. Does anyone here have them?

Dinie Gootjes

Jack_Williams

Some great stuff.

I didn't mean to hijack Benjamin's rug though. I speculated his may belong to this group, partly by default. But the markers are contradictory and the field is disarmingly simple. Darn if I have much confidence in any attribution.

I've run through the usual suspects from Aimaqs to Kurds to Comanches and just cannot put a finger on any group that has all of these characteristics. Maybe... a JA-like compromise...an Ersari woman married to Uzbek-Kurd who lived in the Quinate, whose mother was a Baluch from Zabol?

Joel Greifinger

Hi Dinie and all,

Here's another presumptively Ferdows bag. It has the lozenge in the center that Azadi refers to as "moon and half-moon" that he says is characteristically Ferdows, that also appears on a couple of the rugs that Jack posted. On this bag, the central medallion is framed by a calyx lattice that pops up in various Baluch-group weavings from time to time.



Joel Greifinger

Benjamin Tholen

Hello Everybody,

First of all: There are some damn beautifull rugs out here now, to me especially with the ones that Jack posted, defenitly including the one he didnt buy
They have a liveliness within the reduced palette that is very, very amazing. To me its like this, that some designs u can look at once or twice and you got it, while a lot of these rugs tell a diffrent story each time you look at them. And in this case a very subtle one. One day when I grow up I will find one like this

Still the quest remains unsolved. While some of Jacks examples feature a very similar border design none of them is entirely similar, especially concerning the field (yet one of them partly features a similar way how the the tree of life "leafs" are attached to the "trunk", what I havent found anywhere else before). It seems to me as if I turned every stone in the web upside down and no shoe reall fits.
I will contact the dealer and ask what they used for the wash to maybe at least get some light on that part of the story.

One last note on the structure (step by step to avoid misunderstanding also language wise)

I look at the rug from the bottom towards the top (looking against the grain? - meaning against the way the pile lies)
I fold it along the wefts (foldline parallel to the next weft). Now looking at the pile each knot made of two strands of yarn has one very tiny knot on the RIGHT strand only.
Now what does that mean, structure wise?

I also noticed that the white yarn used in the border appears to be thicker than the colored yarns, but that may be an effect of dying?


Best

Benjamin

Steve Price

If I correctly understand what you did, the knots are asymmetric, open left.

Regards

Steve Price

Jack_Williams

Longish pile, open left asymmetric knots, seemingly hand spun wool, at least part cotten (?) gray-blue warps, baluch looking unusually simple and spacious tree field but with an unusual leaf, design may have some Turkman-type gul/minor gul, qualities (minor gul is a known Baluch device though), good wool, two bundles of selvedge-rather big -with probably 4-warps per bundle wrapped in what looks like goat hair, simple linear design, fair amount of green.

I wonder if this could have been woven by Uzbeks, either up the amu darya, or possibly in Afghanistan? There is a significant Uzbek and for that matter, Tajkjik population in NWestern Afghanistan, especially in the towns and Herat. I wonder if it could have been a Junlkier (sp) sleeping rug (a "Jr." not constructed in sections), especially given its size?

I am not very conversant with "Uzbeks" but I think they weave with depressed warps and are known to use open left knots?

Patrick Weiler

Here is another of those rugs:

This one hews a bit more to the traditional version, with Khosrow wearing a crown, the cartouche in the middle and the llama pointing the way at the top.

It has the later, clunky border and similar to the other, later versions, poor Shirin is without feet, much less shoes.

Khosrow has a distinct mustache, which is missing in many of these pieces.

And, to tie it in to the original post, it has a mysterious date!
The cartouche almost is reminiscent of a Rug Within A Rug. The heraldic lions may relate to the English influence in the region, but the latchook medallion is almost SW Persian in design.

Patrick Weiler

Jack Williams

Rich, my brother related something to me that was told to him 35 years ago by Jerry Anderson. Jerry said one way to improve the looks of the wool of a dull baluch rug is to put it in an easy chair and sit on it for a few weeks.

I've tried it and it seems to help. As a matter of fact I'm working atop one now. Thought I would suggest that... Regards.

Jack Williams

Patrick... mysterious date indeed! It does remind me of Benjamin's date with the odd mixture of numbers.

On these pictorial Baluch rugs ... I've always found it strange that the king almost always has red or blond hair, and in many, the women likewise are blonds. I wonder what's up with that?

The characters in your rug look even more "playing card" royalty than usual. I wonder if that little internal inset with the odd date is actually a copy of the back of a playing card? well... maybe not... but ....

Jack Williams

Well, I’m going to reluctantly give up trying to attribute Benjamin’s rug, geography or age. Just too many contradictions are inherent in it for my limited knowledge.

My brother sent me a message from Afghanistan wondering if it was an Indian copy of a Baluch. That is a possibility. But, Ben’s rug is big, almost 10’ x 5.5’, and I question why someone would make a copy of a rug that size, with such a plain vanilla design. There is a human tendency to elaborate most commercial copies, not go minimalist.

The main reason I originally opined “Arab-Baluch” can be summarized in these two rugs. The 50s-60s ‘pictorial” seems to have structural characteristics similar to Ben’s, with long pile, gray wefts, tight depressed weave, open-left knots, border tonality … yet the border design is pretty definitively Baluch, and the field design has the “playing card people” popularly associated with “Ferdous pictorials.”



I cannot remember where I found the photo of this next rug, it isn’t mine and I don’t have the structural details. But it has many of the characteristics of “Ferdous” and the field design in alternate blocks has a particular shaped leaf attached to a trunk that could be from the same tree as Benjamin’s leaves, but with a different coloration of course (seasonal change you know…).



That iffy connection is pretty thin gruel to attribute his rug. But I am fresh out of ideas.

Just to round out the Ferdous discussion, here are some collage-pictures of Ferdous rugs that combine most of the elements we’ve discussed (except the pictorial rugs). I think they are for sale on the net, so Steve request we limit comment on them to athestics.

These first two include some ubiquitous critters wandering around amid the floral elements… incidentally, this type floral spray could possibly be traced back to a particular Meshed design … see The Persian Carpet, Edwards, pictures of Meshed rugs.





This next one features the “gul” that is encountered in “Ferdous” rugs… Personally, I think this “gul” has an Afshar origin for tortuous reasons I won’t inflict on you now.


.
Finally, I noticed that in the Ferdous pictorial rugs, the people all look like playing card royalty. Heck, some of the old pictorials even have “clubs” and “hearts” symbols floating around. So …. I wonder if this rug could be “Ferdous?”



Regards, Jack Williams

Benjamin Tholen

Good morning,

After some time on road, I am currently waiting for the dealer to reply to my questions especially concerning the possibiltiy of chemical wash, as well as what information the age attribution of ca. 100 years given by their expert was based on (including the "80 years of family possesion" bit)
So until then, I would like to take a look at another issue:

A few posts before Richard posted a picture of one of his rugs with an cartouche on it, that might contain a date. Now I just bought, what is said to be a Jaf Kurd Yurt Wall Decor, and on the pictures (I didnt recieve the shipping so far), there is, to me, a striking similarity between the cartouche in richards piece and a pattern found in (only?) one of the borders of this piece. Actually I saw similar patterns in Jaf Kurd bags somwhere else on the web, but dont recall where. All claimed to be pre 1900.

this is the "cartouche" in the jaf piece


And now the cartouche from Richard:



Here we can see how its used repetetive in the borderdesign

and this is nearly the whole piece including the relevant border left hand


Now if we leave avay the bird part and take in account some possible slight weaving error, I would swear that this is basically the same motiv?

Best
Benjamin

ps: Dear Jack, thanks for all the hints! I felt the sleeping rug idea really made some sense, yet what I found online regarding especially uzbek pieces, seemed to have a quite diffrent structure and a verly low knot density, as well...

Joel Greifinger

Hi Benjamin,

I didn't think nomadic Kurds built yurts, living instead in black goat-hair tents on the yayla.

Could you give the dimensions of the weaving?

Thanks,
Joel Greifinger

Jack Williams

Well, warning... the world of "kurd" can be more contentious than the world of Baluch ever was. This item fundamentally alters this line... I would speculate it would be better to start an entirely new line about this interesting fabric.

The Kurds of the west are subdivided into 3 major groups by language, southern kurds barely being able to understand their northern cousins. And the western kurds have at least three major weaving groups, and hundreds of minor ones spread from Syria through Iraq and Anatolia to southern Iran.

Beyond general "kurdness", their world of flat weaves is even more problematic. This is partly because their flatweaves have retained a lot of the "orginal" Kurdish aspects, whereas their rugs have assimulated much from other cultures.

That said... about this item... I'm not sure what makes it "Jeff [i.e. soutwestern] Kurd." It has a lot of visual characteristics of "Kordi" weavings... Kordi being a term used to designate the Eastern Kurds of Khorrison.

I will be interested to see what some of the Kurdish and flatweave experts have to say. You might be asked to describe the weaving method used. That is more than I could do. Nice item by the way.

Frank Martin Diehr

Hi all,

Kordi also sprang to my mind immediately, though I am by no means an expert in that field. A friend of mine, however, is, and I have seen a number of similar pieces in his collection.
Kordi pieces, and Kurdish pieces in general, are a extremely hard to attribute, and Jack is quite right to issue a word of caution in this respect and call for a fresh thread, certainly worth having a better look at.

Frank

p.s. I had a quick browse through Stanzer's excellent Kordi, and although there is no directly comparable piece in there, but a few main size kelims with some similarities, I sense a distinct nod in that direction.

__________________
This is just an uneducated guess!

Benjamin Tholen

Hello again,

I will open a thread once its delivered next week. The attribution to jaff kurd including the term "yurt wall" decor, has been used by the dealer. Intersting thing is that despite that the weaving seems similar to a soumakh, it can be used from both sides, and the dealer provided pictures of both of sides, that look very similar, not like a soumakh from the back would look like usually. Dimensions are pretty large: 9.3x5.7ft

To Frank: Meanwhile I will invite my neigbours cat to question her about the pieces in discussion and continue reading...

best
benjamin

Jack Williams

Yo, Frank... right about Stanzer's Kordi being excellent. It might be the most informative rug book I've ever read... except for yours of course...

Check pages 57 and 66, the kilims in the small cultural pictures.

Regards, Jack

richard tomlinson

hi all

i've heard of the 'endless knot' design in some rugs but i am wondering if this might be an 'endless thread' ;-)

regards
richard

Frank Martin Diehr

Hi Richard,

all right, all right, let's open a Kordi thread and let us all dig out the odd Kordi, or Kurdi, or Kurd-Baluch for that matter ...


Jack,

at least Stanzer has travelled extensively in the region, and knows a thing or two about the Kordi, and is full of stories from the hippie trail ... whereas I'm just a collector who got caught by that virus that keeps a firm grip on us for the rest of our lives.

Benjamin,

you have been warned, but my diagnosis is: too late.

Frank

__________________
This is just an uneducated guess!

Joel Greifinger

Hi all,

While we're waiting to spot a new Kordi thread breaking over the horizonhere are a couple of images of Kordi flatweaves with obvious affinities to Benjamin's piece. Structurally, both of these are weft-faced plain weave patterned with weft-float brocading, knotted weft wrapping and reverse weft wrapping. They're from Tanavoli's Persian Flatweaves:






The first is pretty close to Benjamin's in size: 9'10" x 5'3" (300 x 160cm) as well as sharing a number of design features.

Benjamin -
When the new thread arrives, would you post the pictures of the back of the piece?

Joel Greifinger

Jack Williams

Darn, I've been working on what could be a Salon about some specific, possibly Kordi, pile rugs. I originally was writing a short article aimed for Hali, but it kept getting more and more involved.

I sure would like us to hold Kordi until I can finish this thing... but what the heck, it is a complicated subject and can stand a conversation about flat weaves still leaving room for pile rugs. Could be fun... Here is the only sumauch I have... possibly Kurdish, possibly anatolian, I certainly don't know.

Richard Larkin

Hi all,

Here's another one of those "playing card character" Seistan/Zabol rugs that appeared in an Eberhart Herrmann advertisement in HALI No. 53 (October 1990).



It's rather slick as they go. The excellent condition gives us a chance to see how the end finish was handled. All things being equal, I usually view striped flatwoven ends in Baluch rugs without supplementary wefts ("weft float," so-called) as an indication of relatively late production, though I don't have a big problem with Herrmann's estimate of ca. 1900.

Rich Larkin

Richard Larkin

Hi Benjamin,

I have to give you points for finding that similarity (cf. your post #65 of August 7). The figures in the cartouche of my rug do look like degraded versions of the repeating design in that Kurdish trapping. However, I have a hard time attributing the phenomenon to anything except coincidence. Following is the cartouche in its entire context.



What seems conspicuous is that the cartouche was intended to stand out from the general design and layout of the rug. If so, why would a weaver choose to copy (ineffectively) that particular motif? Also, I will mention again that I have seen a fair number of Caucasian rugs through the years with nineteenth century dates rendered from the European calendar that have that particular approach to the number, "8".

Regards. I can see you are having plenty of fun with rugs.

Rich Larkin

Benjamin Tholen

Hello everybody,

Regarding the original thread :
Today I got an answer from the dealer. He says, the former owner used this piece as a wall hanging for most of the time (?), that it doesnt have chemical dyes (I wonder why he said this, cause in his offer he didnt mention if the dyes were natural or not), and that he didnt wash the rug with any chemicals.

Meanwhile I read somewhere about a treatment having been applied on "american sarough" rugs in the 1920s to 30s wich were first bleached, then given a treatment against the dullness of the bleach that resultet in more then natural gloss and sometimes have even been painted afterwards. These rugs were often orderd with extra long pile to counter the damaging effect of the bleach. Now I dunno if a similar treatment has ever been applied on baluch rugs, and how this would fit together with the hadspun wool foundation and some other features, but anyhow.

After all the analysis, I am back to my intutive, and so I would say this peice maybe from the 1920s or 30s as some suggested, and I would guess it features at least some chemical dyes.
Yet I still find it very, very beautifull, especially because of its spacious pattern, and the nice border design, wool, and gloss. So after every other newer piece with chemical dyes I ever saw, was kind of dissapointing to me, this one to me seems like the proof that it doesnt have to be like that always

Anyhow I am happy that it lead to such a great discussion with all of u, and I could learn a lot, so far.

Now regarding the kurdish piece, the pieces posted so far really show a lot of similarity. Meanwhile I got all the pictures, back and front and other observations, but before I open a new threat on the Flatweave, I would want to ask if Jack wants to open a thread anywhere in the nearer future, in wich case I would of course wait and post this piece and another supposedly kurdish piece (pile rug) there?

Actually I have quiet a lot of people waiting for ur expertise on kurdish weavings, and there is a story to that: (a short one, promised!)

At 7 o clock I gave up waiting for the delivery of the rug and had a beer. Returning half an hour later theres a note, that it has been deposited in the 24 hour internetcafe/store next to my house.
Its run by two ladies, who seem to be of one family. As I pick up the delivery they ask: my god thats heavy - whats in there?
When I tell them its a kurdish flatweave, they freak out. They are both kurdish, one of them even learned weaving and pile knotting as a child. They forced me to unpack it right here and there. So the first ground it touched after its journey from amsterdam was sort of kurdish Now they are keen to see pictures and hear about kurdish rugs every day, and I cant pass by the shop without promising them to tell about your expertise So Jack - lets get that thing going

Best regards to all of u,
benjamin

ps:
Dear Richard, maybe in the new thread we can also investigate the origins of that symbol? Actually it can only be found in one of the borders of the rug, while the others have a diffrent design.
Then again the cartouche in ur very beautifull piece, also seems a bit "alien" there. So I agree that it is probably just a coincidence that whatever was intended to be shown there looks like this symbol, but maybe if we find out about other appearances of that symbol, other possibiltys arise? And what about the bird under the figure eight? Well, probably ure right about the conicidence, but I so much hope for a mysterious meaning to be discoverd

Dinie Gootjes

Hi Rich,

I find that Herrmann piece rather a let-down. The acrobatics in the more usual pieces, where the rider seems to ooze amoeba-like over the neck of the horse, are far more interesting in my opinion.

Great find, I have never seen one like that. I wonder if the other tiny people and the camels etc. are supposed to be part of the story, or whether they are like the many other animals and people in rugs. Whatever meaning they had for the weavers.

Dinie

Chuck Wagner

Hi Dinie, et al,

In his book: "Kings, Heroes & Lovers - Pictorial Rugs From The Tribes And Villages Of Iran", Tanavoli shows a very similar rug (Plate 44):



This is a must-own book for afficianados of Persian figural rugs.

He attributes this rug to Zabul, noting it has an arrangement of figures quite often seen in rugs from Firdows. He states the upper figures are Khosrow on a horse, with a companion. The middle figures are unremarkable with only clothing to tell them apart. The lower figures are Shirin - seated - surrounded by attendants.

Both warp & weft are wool on this piece, goat hair selvage, asymmetric left knots, 80 / sq in.

Regards
Chuck Wagner

Rich Larkin

Hi Dinie,

Your prose (or is that poetry?) is more interesting than all them rugs together.

Rich Larkin

P. S.: I did say the rug was on the slick side.

Patrick Weiler

Jack,

That flatweave you posted looks like it could be a brocaded bag from the Malatya area of eastern Turkey.
These weavings tend to look a lot alike, so starting a thread on them may "shed" some light on them. And distinguishing one type of flatweave from another, especially with sumak and brocading, can be a challenging prospect.

Patrick Weiler

Jack Williams

Patrick, thanks for the info on that flat weave. I honestly know little about it, or for that matter about the techniques and attribution of flatweaves in general. I don’t even know why I bought that piece as it obviously isn’t baluch-related, or why I posted it as it obviously isn't "Kordi." What was I thinking?

I’ve tried to read Marla’s book about Kilims, flatweaves, etc., and follow the discussions, of methods, but I only end up getting confused... geezzzz... and I have multiple degrees in Engineering etc. Perhaps one needs to have Marla’s book, AND a ready supply of examples.

About your pictorial rug with the little “rug within a rug.” At a glance it looks as if that little picture is attempting to show the classic “Ibex eating from the tree” that is a staple in Iranian art. At least that is my first impression.



Re: the Ferdous “gul.” I have a thesis that this is a derivative from a particulaly Afshar core symbol. From Dr. Wegner’s writings on Baluch, he shows this drawing:



... and comments on it as follows: (note: Some of Wegner’s writings about Baluch are either a little cryptic or incompletely describe the subject).

“moon symbols have always been used and are still being used on rugs, like on the Balouch rug from the area of Ferdows.

The two phased moon is shown three times (Ill. 1). Twenty-five years ago only some very old Balouch weavers and the Djulghe Khaf were able to associate these patterns with the moon.”

… whatever that means.

http://www.tcoletribalrugs.com/article9baluch.html Go to Part 3:

Apparently this symbol is supposed to represent a moon calendar in some way. But it only has 20 sides, must have some cryptogram to decipher. If one adds another “step” in each diagonal, the total would have 28 sides, approximating the # of days in the lunar cycle.

Anyway, it is interesting to contemplate. I personally think the Afshar flaming stepped polygon symbol from which this "gul" is possibly derived goes back to Buddhist influences before the miagrations of the Orghuz Turks away from the Altai regions.

Joel Greifinger

Hi Jack,

I assume that Azadi bases his term for that 'Ferdous gul' ("moon and half moon") on Wegner's description

Here's an "Afshar flaming stepped polygon" for illustration. Some of the structural characteristics of this bag face lead me to wonder whether it fits Cole's "Outback Afshar" category.



Will you elaborate a bit on your proposed Buddhist link?

Joel Greifinger

Jack Williams

Good evening Joel. Very nice bag.

The origin of that symbol, its common use by Afshar groups isolated from each other by hundreds of miles and hundreds of years, was a speculation I developed several years ago. It was purely academic excercise, but has a some basis in some art that survives.

I went back and re-read my notes and it will take a while to organize them, and make a case that can stand scrutiny. Of note is Tom Cole's comments that this symbol is fairly common throughout central Asia... but to me it is the "flames" that make it interesting.

Unfortunately, the rug world has many well-known people who's wilder speculations about attribution, especially baluch, often presented as fact with little basis, have done damage to scholorship. Let me see if I feel comfortable presenting this idea, maybe in an afshar line when one comes up.

Regards

Benjamin Tholen

Dear Jack,

I still wonder if u will open a new thread on the kordi issue, as mentioned below?

Best regards

Benjamin

Jack Williams

Benjamin, my potential "Salon," or article will be about Kordi pile rugs, but it is far from finished. I have several such half-baked writings never formalized into a final document. If you wait on me you might be waiting awhile.

Go ahead and post your Kilim. Besides, it may prove to be from some other Kurdish group. "Kurdish" can be kontentious, especially flatweaves, but there are some recognized experts that occasionally post here.