Uzbek (?) Engsi

Dear folks -

The Turkmen exhibition at next year's ICOC X here in Washington, DC will be one that includes engsis only.

So some of us here, working with this exhibition, have been looking at more than a few images of such Turkmen door rugs and may have, in fact, become a bit jaded about what might constitute a good one.

Despite my current oversaturation in this area, I found the engsis that Jerry had selected for this exhibition quite strong.

I was particularly attracted to rug 57, which is labeled as possibly an Uzbek engsi.



In the wool this piece is very colorful. I am also impressed with its composition. I think the weaver used white effectively and I don't think I've previously seen "gul" devices used in an engsi design in quite this way. The piece is well designed and executed and projects a sense of tidy completeness to me.

It is a piece I wish I had known about when we were, a year or so ago, first thinking about the ICOC X Turkmen exhibition.

Regards,

R. John Howe

Hi John,

The ensi section was one of my favorite parts of the exhibition. It is nice to be able to see several related pieces (I think there were six, four of them Yomud) at the same time. This allows them to be compared, which is really useful. I'm very much looking forward to the ensi exhibition at ICOC next year, for the same reason.

Regards,

Steve Price

That was my intent. Having a bunch of something allows comparison.

I suppose if I had been shown a pile of great, unusual, stunningly beautiful Kazaks, there would have been a half-dozen of them in the exhibition. But it was ensiis that showed up. And choosing among them was too tough, so I took them all.

Seeing six side-by-side makes me anxious to see an entire exhibition of ensiis.

-Jerry-