Posted by Patrick Weiler on July 31, 1999 at 09:43:56:
In Reply to: Re: Vincent Keer's "Anahit": Image posted by Daniel Deschuyteneer on July 31, 1999 at 00:29:12:
: Dear all,
: I have been out of this discussion for some days because I needed to prepare my next salon.
: Vincent's rug is quite different than Wendel's rug. According to L. Kerimov it's basically design is a crude version of the Khirdagyd-Chichi design and the central medallion was often used in Gendge rugs. Borders are atypical and peculiarly the outer border.
: It's sometimes seen in Kuba and Daghestan rugs but far more often in North and South western Persian rugs. The yellow ground and the overall color scheme suggest me a Gendge attribution. But this is only a guess without any structural information's.
:
: A Luri attribution has been suggested by Patrick Weiler for Wendel's rug. I also thought it could be Luri, but the rendering of the humans and other details in the rug isn't Luri. Luri rugs are more often cruder in design and the elements scattered on the field are rarely organized. Look to how human are simply and naively woven in the Luri rugs illustrated in Opie and Housego books
: The human clothes drawn in Wendel's rug aren't very helpful in attribution. The only thing we can say is that they have hats, a common habit in Azerbaidjian.
:
: Until now we didn't spoke about the wool quality. This is an important feature as Shasavan always used wool of very high quality.
: Last it seems through the discussions that the structure would be a peculiar (perhaps Shasavan) feature which would help to indentify the origins of this rug.
: I have some difficulties to clearly imagine and see how it really appears at the back even in the picture of the humans. It would be very interesting to see a direct scan with a high magnification and resolution done before scanning.
: Thanks to all for your input it's really a very very interesting salon !
: Cordially
: Daniel
Dear Daniel,
Thank you for giving me a chance to redeem myself. Perhaps I will also remove one foot from my mouth for another, but here goes:
I have been reading Hali 104. There is an article by Murray Eiland, Jr, on Afshan design.
This rug has design similarities to the afshan design (which was popular in the south Caucasus since the 18th century). This rug has, as its main element, what Murray calls the "horizontally aligned palmette", albeit in a much altered form. This rug also has what he calls the "rounde, lobed figure" at the top and bottom corners, (total of four).
I do not see the other main afshan design elements, but Mr. Eiland notes that later rugs were woven with only one or two of the afshan elements in them.
Therefore, this rug could very well be a considerably degenerate tribal (therefore possibly shahsavan, who migrated back and forth accross what is now the border between the southern Caucasus and northern Iran) version of the afshan pattern.
I would speculate tribal rather than settled village weaving, since it seems that the majority of the village rugs were more commercially influenced than this rug appears to be.
Degenerate or not, it is a fabulously quirky and extremely appealing rug.
Patrick Weiler