Posted by Patrick Weiler on April 11, 1999 at 10:15:42:
The repairs on the Ushak were done long enough ago to suspect that they were done to enable the rug to be used as a rug. It is better than if the rug had been allowed to deteriorate into ruin. Now the decision is whether you want to buy a rug that has been
"saved" from destruction and is a true example of an old rug. The buyer may feel that the price paid, plus the cost to replace the old repairs, is worth the hammer price.
My thought on the topic is related to "Fine Art". Paintings are routinely "repaired" and we think nothing of it. As a matter of fact, we throng to see the results of years of repair on the Sistine Chapel, etc.
Even antique cars are rebuilt, down to the foundation. Granted, the purists want as much "new old-stock" parts as possible, but the completed product is worth considerably more than the unrepaired version.
It seems that this attitude that original "as-found" condition is so much superior to a "real" fragment is almost exclusive to the rug world. Fellow TurkoTek-ers will hopefully enlighten us with their viewpoints.
Even though Don Wilber was quoted as saying that there were not as many altered dates in his late 1980's study of dated rugs as is commonly believed, I suspect that the percentage of "altered" (repaired) rugs is considerably higher than we would like to think. Everything from selectively removing "objectionable" colors to practically re-inventing a rug from a 20% fragment. There are examples of this in prominent rug books.
Is Pamela Anderson all real? If I were going to marry her, I would certainly want to know, but for artistic appreciation, it is not too important :-)
Patrick Weiler