| Dear All: Daniel's Salon has identified a distinctive group of ivory
ground long rugs displaying memling gul devices. Of course, memling guls
have been used on a variety of weavings by a variety of weavers for at
least 500 years. The memling gul is a basic design element consisting of a
stepped polygon with hooked arms extending from the polygon. Turkoman
collectors and scholars have long held that Turkoman bags are special
weavings that contain tribal identity, tribal symbols and even a woven
language. Yet memling guls are found on the bags, and virtually only on
bags, woven by Turkomans. In "Antique Oriental Carpets from Austrian
Collections" (Vienna 1983) Pobert Pinner identified memling gul tentbags
of the Salor, Saryk, Kizil Ayak, Yomud, Eagle - group II and Tekke tribes.
Since then numerous other examples have come to light including an
Arabachi Kap (Lot 50 Sotheby's London October 19, 1994) now in the
Hecksher collection that has no secondary ornament - only memling guls -
(see also "Wie Blumen in der Wuste", Hamburg 1993, plate 94) as well as
additional Saryk examples such as plate 215 on page 186 of "Oriental Rugs
from Atlantic Collections", Philadelphia 1996. What conclusions, if any,
do we draw from the existence of memling guls on the small weavings of
such a variety of Turkoman groups? |