You have identified a serious question when you correctly point out how beautiful the colors are on many new rugs.

Some of those rugs are made using "natural" dyes (which only gets us back to the starting point), but others - even some alleged to be naturally dyed - use synthetics. The issue may be less the chemical derivation of the dye than the skill with which it is applied and the artistry with which it is displayed in the design.

But if you want to assess the relative impact of a synthetic dye in the mind's eye of collectors, follow the auction price a rug with them achieves compared with a similar piece without synthetics.

Do we owe it to the ACOR audience (collectors or spouses of collectors, one and all) to exhibit only synthetic dye-free rugs?

-Jerry-

If you collectively decide to allow only rugs without synthetic dyes, does this mean that you will require all rugs to have dye-test results? Or would you only decline to accept supposedly-seemingly-synthetic-dyed rugs? No bleeding Turkmens?

You can probably find a few folks with the Evil Eye (I mean Experienced Eye) to help you with your decisions.

What about rugs made with vegetal dyes but made in the synthetic dye era? It might be quite difficult to limit the show to confirmed 1st-half 19th century rugs.

You will probably revert to the theory posited in a recent thread that "a knot or two" of synthetic dyes does not ruin a piece, but helps to place it chronologically, whereas a rug replete with synthetic dyes would not make the cut.

Synthetically yours,

Patrick Weiler

The question still remains: Is this an artificially enhanced bias that synthetics are inferior in that they diminish the quality of beauty that the rugs have? Or do we look at them for what they really are? Do the price at auction determine how beautiful a piece of work is? Is beauty, like virtue, these days, measured only in monetary terms and beyond which there is no other acceptable means to justify the value?
(To clarify the point I am trying to make: virtue is not worth much in itself, financially and it seldom wins much respect except skeptism. So beauty is not beauty unless it costs a lot by a group of individuals who are able to drive up the prices) Are even our sense of aesthetic expression and appreciation enslaved by dollars and cents?

Eden

The aesthetics of an object are internal to the observer. The things that determine aesthetic appeal are similar for most of us, but that's because most of us (the people who look in on this website) have a related aesthetic sense. The overwhelming majority of the world's people have little or no interest in rugs, and have aesthetic preferences quite different than ours. As shocking as it is to rug neurotics, the total number of antique rugs in the hands of collectors is probably much smaller than the number of Pakistani "Princess Bokhara" rugs produced and sold every single year.

Among the factors rug collectors consider is the monetary value of a piece. It isn't the whole story, but it is a factor for everyone. The things that determine value aren't always rational (if they are ever rational; collecting is not a rational activity), and trying to put a completely rational face on the matter inevitably leads to the kind of frustration you're experiencing.

Regards,

Steve Price

I wonder if the appreciation of natural dyes isn't in some ways similar to the liking of other organic, archaic stuff: you can still get a wood steering wheel and leather seats in a Jaguar; cotton, silk, and wool trump polyester in clothing; etc...

So what's the role of the curator?: give the people what they paid for, versus subversive insertion of a piece or two making curatorial comments....

It is true that an argument can be made that the only real serious question about dyes is how the resulting colors "look," and in truth part of the preference among collectors for pieces with naturual dyes only, is their feeling that such dyes in fact look better than do even the best synthetic dyes.

But the situation is actually a bit more complicated than that. It is also felt by many collectors that material woven in the 18th century or the first half of the 19th century is often of noticeably higher quality on a number of dimensions than most of the pieces woven, say after 1850.

Since synthetic dyes were invented in the 1860's and being used widely in the rug producing areas, in the last quarter of the 19th century, the likely presence of a synthetic dye in a piece makes it impossible for a collector to say a phrase we dearly love to say.

That is, "Perhaps before 1850..."

Regards,

R. John Howe