Posted by Steve Price on July 02, 1999 at 05:44:48:
In Reply to: Re: Shahsavan Mafrash Panel posted by Patrick Weiler on July 01, 1999 at 23:56:26:
Dear Patrick,
The Housego piece also has very interesting little animals within the motifs. I wish the photo was in color.
There are all sorts of possibilities for the unusual little "h" in the top border, of course. My inclination is to place some weight on the fact that Shahsavan cargo bags are made with a rather limited vocabulary of border types, and when we run into one that can't be found anywhere it's probably a new innovation or an old one that's been lost. I wouldn't want to risk hanging for being wrong on that.
As for the date in the Housego piece: I've only seen three soumak bags with inscribed dates, all were well into the 20th century although only one of them would be considered "late" by the usual criteria. I believe that with these things, as with Caucasian rugs (and perhaps more other stuff than we care to realize), the only 20th century pieces with natural-looking dyes are those with inwoven 20th century dates :-).
Steve Price