I do recall seeing "stray reds" on some rugs in the Wiedersperg collection. Hali issue 109 even shows one, on page 110, Ersari, 19th Century. This rug has an inner border with a "splotchy" pinkish white.
This topic is very intriquing, so I checked my copy of the book Rugs & Carpets From Central Asia, by Elena Tzareva, to see if there were any examples in it. Robert Pinner carefully read the text and advice was given by Black and Loveless during preparation of the book.
I have noted stray reds in several carpets. Carpets assigned to the "early 19th century" or "18th century" with "questionable" white areas with reddish tones include plates: 27, Saryk Torba, 18th century; 37/38 Tekke Kapunuk, first half 19th century; 46, Tekke asmalyk, 18th/first half 19th century; 49, late 18th/first half 19th century; 63, Tekke mafrash, 18th century; and, arguably plate 66, Yomud, not later than early 19th century.

I did not include "19th century" examples due to the possibility that they were made using synthetic dyes.

The conclusion I come to is that, even if these rugs did not bleed when woven and washed, something caused the fugitive dye to migrate into adjacent white areas of these weavings. If not contaminated by blood, wine, inadvertant spilling of henna when coloring women's hair in the yurt or other later contamination, the red dyes did migrate somehow.

Perhaps a cleaning agent used sometime during the life of the rugs was responsible. Some very powerful cleaning agents have been used over the years by otherwise well-meaning cleaners. If water alone is not the guilty party, we do have a body, we must just determine the murderer.

Patrick Weiler

I'm glad you mentioned Elena Tzareva. She spoke at the Textile Museum in DC last weekend, and one of her slides was of a Salor piece with what appeared to be red splotches in ivory areas. I asked her about this, and she said that the slide was made many years ago and is of poor quality, that the red splotches don't exist in the piece.

She is curator of the museum that owns it, and it's her section of the museum, so she should really be familiar with what it looks like live. The photographic reproduction in the book is generally very dark, and if the slide she showed is misleading it is possible that some of the stray reds in the book are artifacts. On the other hand, many of the rugs in the book don't show stray reds. They're in the same museum and were, presumably, photographed at about the same time by the same people under the same conditions.

?????

Steve Price

Regards, Yon

Patrick Weiler.

I have a couple of weavings with what you have called a "smoky" appearance. A suggestion was made to clean them with a baking soda/water solution. I have not tried this, although I had cleaned one of them with Orvus to no beneficial effect. I wonder if these weavings were "washed" with a tea wash or some similar substance. The possibility exists that some unscrupulous sellers wanted to cover up some less than desirable colors and "washed" or "smoked" them to hide these colors.
Most old tribal weavings were subjected to a smoky environment, even after migrating to this country. Smoking was ubiquitous even here until fairly recently, but this does not seem to have permanently damaged most old weavings.

I must include a disclaimer here. I am not Turkmen collector. I can barely tell the difference between a Saryk and a Sarouk. Of the few older Turkmen weavings I own, one has run after having been on a wet floor. It is probably a late 19th/early 20th Yomud dyrnak gul rug with significant problems, including tears and chunks missing, (which are hidden under furniture). It is a lovely rug, honest!
The other two pieces are older and do not have any bleeding or straying. I guess this comprehensive survey conclusively shows a 33% average of stray reds in Turkmen rugs.

Statistically yours,

Patrick Weiler

The smoke discoloration that some Turkmen rugs have doesn't come from people smoking cigarettes or cigars, but from being in a tent with an open fire and cooking going on. This throws off a lot of soot and grease.

I've never tried to clean a smoked rug, but I recall one smokey piece being sold at the Thompson collection sale at Sotheby's, and I'm pretty sure if there was a good way to get the smoke out, Jon Thompson would have known about it.

Regards,

Steve Price

You may be right about many of the old Turkmen pieces that were discolored by smoke getting that way in western settings, and the fact that the dowry pieces were stored most of the time undoubtedly accounts for how few old Turkmen bags and trappings are smoke stained. But some surely got that way in tents.

The example I cited from the Thompson collection was Lot 39 in the Sotheby's December 1993 sale. It's a Yomud tent band, all pile, 45 feet long and 14 inches wide. I handled the thing, and the smoke discoloration appeared to be more or less uniform on the entire length. It could only have happened in a western home if somebody had it displayed completely open for its full length - a fairly unlikely scenario. In the tent it would be exposed except for the short width of the struts, whose position on it would change every time the tent was erected.

Steve Price