TurkoTek Discussion Boards

Subject  :  Star-crossed
Author  :  Patrick Weiler mailto:%20theweilers@ome.com
Date  :  07-23-2001 on 09:50 a.m.
Daniel,

You posted a few pictures of the star within a cross, noting that it was an unusual motif. The same thread discussed the ashik-type border. I found a rug that seems to have both:

Now, this may be going a bit backwards. It is a small pattern Holbein from the Philadelphia Museum, 17th century. The center of the octagons contain a star within a cross. Even the top and bottom of the "arabesque quatrefoils" appear to be miniature versions of the open top egg palmette, with the field entering the body of the palmette. (you can see a bit of this in the upper and lower left of the field in this photograph)
So, it does not get us any closer to where the Italian rug was made, but goes farther back to where the designs may have come from.

Patrick Weiler


Subject  :  Re:Star-crossed
Author  :  Marvin Amstey mailto:%20mamstey1@rochester.rr.com
Date  :  07-23-2001 on 10:31 a.m.
Is this one of those "Christian" rugs? Marvin

Subject  :  Re:Star-crossed
Author  :  Patrick Weiler mailto:%20theweilers@home.com
Date  :  07-23-2001 on 03:51 p.m.
Marvin,

I suspect it was NOT Christian when it was woven in the 17th century. It may have been Animist at that time. It was still not Christian by 1988, when it appeared in Ellis - Oriental Carpets of the Philadelphia Museum - as most likely Moslem. I believe it was forcibly converted in 1991, by the time it appeared in Gantzhorn-The Christian Oriental Carpet. It seems that it had a lapse of faith, because the current version of the same book does not advertise Christian in the title anymore. Perhaps it is searching and is susceptible to being converted to Shahsavan

Proselytely yours,
Patrick Weiler


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