Posted by R. John Howe on December 20, 1998 at 07:32:24:
Dear folks -
Jim and I have had several discussion in which he has attempted to get me to "see" what he "sees" in Turkman designs. I am not always successful. But this piece may provide a good instance for applying Jim's advice to see things more like he feels the Turkmen did by "reading white first." The image he is describing here is for me clearest in the lower left portion of the two whole diamond guls in the image her provides. If one concentrates on the white a bit, it is plausible that the white figure represents some kind of animal. I don't know how we get to leopard unless we make an inferential leap of great virtuosity from what Marco Polo described, to claim that if there are animals on Turkman weavings, they most be the leopards that Polo says the Turkman khans had. Looks more like the little dog to me but I'm a real novice about such things. :-)
Regards,
R. John Howe