|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Registered: Apr 2002 Hallo
everybody, Registered: Mar 2002 Jerry,
I've got a similar photo to show you. Though this rug
is dated 1322, so is quite a bit later than yours if the
dates are to be believed, the photo is large enough to
see the minor borders and the edges, though not the detailed
edge finishes. I'm going to see it "in the wool" this
week, and I'll take my digital camera so I can get more
detail, if you think it would be helpful. Registered: Jan 2002 Marvin, __________________ Registered: Jan 2002 Tracey, __________________ Registered: Dec 2001 Dear
Michael, Registered: Dec 2001 Hi
People, Registered: Jan 2002 Steve, __________________ Registered: Jan 2002 Hi Steve
- Registered: Apr 2002 Hallo
everybody, dear Filiberto, Registered: Dec 2001 Hi
Michael, Registered: Jan 2002 Hello
Jerry, Registered: Jan 2002 Hello
Marvin, Registered: Jan 2002 Yes,
it's odd Registered: Dec 2001 Hi
John, Registered: Jan 2002 Hi
Filliberto, Registered: Apr 2002 Hi
everybody, Registered: Jan 2002 Hi
Michael, Registered: Apr 2002 Hallo
everybody, Registered: Jan 2002 Michael, __________________
Edge Treatment
on Fachralo Kazak
Pages (2): 1 [2]
Author
Thread
Michael Bischof
Member
Location:
Posts: 28
this thread I like: it brought the evidence and the witnesses,
the documents ! I am certainly not masochistic. This is
what other people told me - independant expertise then.
But I see a huge difference between the pieces
shown here (with the usual limitation that we talk on
the basis of digital photographs). If You, dear Filiberto,
do not see it - well, may I propose it is a kind of self-protection
auto-immune aversion against learning ? No, I do
not mean this is an arrogant style. I have apparently
no talents to taste the highest levels of wine but I do
not question that they exist and that talented and trained
people can taste it in an objective way that is repeatable
in double-blind tests.
Let me sum up my opinion:
we have the textile art early village rug fragment here,
the collectable piece. Apparently it was woven without
ready design. The unity of
seems to
be given. She was in command. The result shows
in its spacing and the way the high-class natural dyes
are set together
the spirit of such authentic weaves. The fact that this
early material normally comes down on us only in fragmented
form keeps them affordable, at least as long as the main
stream of the lesser educated people prefer the intact
later and epigonal pieces ("German condition").
The other pieces are quite rare and valuable documents
of a local cottage industry, testimony of the local history
end of the 19th, beginning of the 20th century. In a type
of "industrial history" museum they would have a good
stand, I guess. - If sold at auction or in the retail
trade they form highly valuable floor covers of unrivalled
technical quality. As long as we speak of "textile art"
they are not collectible.
Filiberto, I suppose you make a mistake and please allow
me to point to it: you think from the end, teleological,
and that kills the brave ideas ! Money is really not the
point. You may replace it by endless time of grabbing
in dusty backyards in the Orient to find that one early
piece (which then might have an astonishing low price,
at least one time in five years), using each chance to
study quality in the best museums, at the best collections,
then spend more time to digest it ..... and then apply your
result again in the dust !
By the way: I would reject the Rolls - Royce, especially
the chauffeur, ... and would hunt an early kilim that
enhances my pulse !
Or, as Michael Franses has put it: study the subject as
good as you can - and then buy the best you can afford
! Really, to concentrate
on something is sometimes helpful. Many collectors that
I know waste their time and money with too many mediocre
things - and when they are faced with the "ultimate" there
is no power left. As a rough subjective and personal estimate
that I appy:
a great textile should be like an impressive personality
- once met, never forgotten ! If I cannot memorize a piece
some years later for
me it is not "great". Sometimes I have to study hard to
be able to tell to other people why I hold this opinion.
And a final word: with HPLC and Visual-UV-Diode-Array
detection one could really measure the differences in
the dye quality. It is not something like " I can see
but you can't" !
Greetings,
Michael
10-27-2002 07:31 PM
Tracy Davis
Member
Location:
Posts: 5
Here's the Kazak:
10-28-2002 12:42 AM
Jerry Raack
Member
Location: Pataskala, Ohio (near Columbus)
Posts: 9
Since you've not seen nor handled any of the pieces, I
suspect, I can understand why you might be skeptical.
By the way, are you skeptical of all dates, or just the
one on my rug?
I would find it very unusual for people in that region
to have a number assigned to them, and I have never heard
of rugs having an inventory number woven into them. I
also don't believe that a weaver would "experiment" with
numbers in a rug -- there is simply no reason to do that,
and the rug is obviously not a wagireh where a weaver would
experiment. I fully believe that all such occurences of
numbers that are translatable into dates were intended to be
dates. What those dates represent can be argued, and has
been many times.
My rug and that of Ed Krayer aren't the first time that
extreme similarities have resulted in people thinking
that 2 pieces are of the same age only to find out that
they are not. In a Hali article by Tschebull (Hali, 1978,
vol 1, No 3, Pg 258), 2 Karachov rugs which are very similar
in design are compared. The one rug in the McMullan collection
is dated 1797, and the other is not dated. When an analysis
of a red was done on the undated example, it was found
to contain the Russian synthetic dye known as Ponceau
2R which was not available until 1880, and not documented
in a dated rug until 1886. So, that put the McMullan rug
and the very close look-alike about a 100 years apart!
THe same could be true of my rug and Ed Krayer's. Personally,
I believe there are quite a few obvious differences in
the 3 rugs pictured in terms of the colors, design and
drawing, and I suspect that the weave is considerably
different if enough were known about the other 2 to compare
them. I'll take mine, in spite of its condition any day
of the week. (I'd also take Ed Krayer's rug, but would
pass on the one in the Gans-Reudin book as it is very
stiffly drawn to me, and the colors really appear weak.)
By the way, for those of you who have not read the Tschebull
article I referenced above in the 1978 edition of Hali,
it is an EXCELLENT article entitled "The Development of
four Kazak Designs". In it, Mike puts forth through examples
the differences in design, color and drawing that help date
rugs to various periods of time. It is a very good article and
very helpful to help distinguish differences in Kazak
designs of all types.
Jerry Raack
Pataskala, Ohio
10-28-2002 01:51 AM
Jerry Raack
Member
Location: Pataskala, Ohio (near Columbus)
Posts: 9
I just spotted the photo of your very "happy" rug. The
colors are "happy" colors for me and make me smile. Thanks
for posting it. I would be interested in a photo of the
edge finish (from the back or front, or both) would be
nice. You can post them, or simply email them to me
directly.
Congrats on a very nice piece with a very believable date.
Jerry Raack
Pataskala, Ohio
10-28-2002 01:54 AM
Filiberto Boncompagni
Administrator
Location: Amman, Jordan
Posts: 10
I don't question most of your opinions, I question only
your dogmatic conclusion ON WHAT IS OR ISN'T COLLECTABLE.
I do not question the fact that "Kilims have one primary
advantage over pile rugs: their degree of authenticity
is much higher! Pile weaves are no nomadic habit anyway,
a kind of "derivative" exploit of the superior knowhow
on sheep, wool, fibre processing and weaving that these
Turko-Mongolic cultures developed and therefore a major
trading object. But for the own use they are secondary. And:
they are much more subject to marketing influences even at
very early times."
I do not question you when you write: "My idea was
that therefore kilims are much more collectable than the
bulk of piled weaves which are late commercial products
anyway".
What I question is the last phrase of this quotation :
"The other pieces are quite rare
and valuable documents of a local cottage industry, testimony
of the local history end of the 19th, beginning of the
20th century. In a type of "industrial history" museum
they would have a good stand, I guess. - If sold at auction or
in the retail trade they form highly valuable floor covers of
unrivalled technical quality. As long as we speak of "textile
art" they are not collectible." (my
emphasis).
If I follow you correctly, it seems to me that at first
you seem to suggest and THEN you imperatively conclude
that the ONLY textiles worth of collecting are very early
piled rugs (not bearing the slightest suspicion of commercialism)
and early kilims.
Now, commercialism is a thorny question itself.
When S.M. Dudin assembled the material for the for the
Russian Museum new department of ethnography, during the
years 1901-1902, he " wrote about the Tekkes as follows:
"In some places, to satisfy the increasing demand, they
weave carpets all day long. Sometimes this work is done
by one employer, who engages the weavers and orders the
carpets not only of definite size, but of definite pattern.
Still more often carpets are made in the intervals in
between the everyday housework of Tekke women".
I suppose that was already going on for a few years by
then.
So we should exclude most of the Tekke weavings younger
than - say - 115 or 110 years. The same, probably, for
other Turkoman tribes. Caucasian production of the same age is
already out of question.
And, uh, the Pazyryk rug isn't collectible either. It
seems it is a workshop product. Like the Mamluks rugs.
OK, I'm stretching it a bit - let me only say that I find
your ideas quite draconian and snobbish.
That's fine, anyway. One is entitled to his own opinions.
The reason that started my previous posting was that,
in the old thread on "synthetic dyes and ethnographic
value" we already expressed different opinions on similar
matters - what should and shouldn't be collectable - so
you know that such different opinions exists…
THUS I think it should be more respectful to avoid recommendations
to people who don't agree with you "to move to areas where
the own talents are".
Thanks,
Filiberto
P.S. - By the way, I do not question your ability to recognize
good dyes. I DO question your assurance to recognize them
in a couple of scanned picture without any margin of
doubt.
P.P.S. - Unless your Visual-UV-Diode-Array detection works
on digital images too!
10-28-2002 02:18 PM
Steve Price
Administrator
Location:
Posts: 37
The issue of what is and is not collectible keeps coming
up. The fact is that everything is collectible,
but not every collector collects everything. My pet example
is airsickness bags. There are at least 25 websites devoted
to peoples' collections of those things.
I seem to repeat this little mantra once or twice a year,
but here it comes again: Collecting is a neurotic activity
by its very nature, and to assert that one manifestation
of this form of mental illness is more intelligent or
ethical than another is a virtually indefensible position.
Put another way, collecting what I do is my neurosis,
and as long as I don't hurt anyone while I do it, I don't
have to defend it or pretend that it makes sense.
Regards,
Steve Price
10-28-2002 02:30 PM
Chuck Wagner
Member
Location: Saudi Arabia
Posts: 2Aw Gee
Mom, the boys were just givin' Beaver the business...
a) ... Thanks, Dad. 
b) ...maybe so, but this forum is observed (silently)
by a lot of folks who hold the conversations hereon in
moderately high regard, largely due to the tradition here
of holding someones feet in the fire until they demonstrate
that there's some thought behind the content of their posts
(..I'm still practicing).
The notion that "new is bad" gets a lot of air time here.
So this is an "Equal Time" thing. Not that many collectors
are Warren-Buffet-investalikes, willing to wait decades
to drop $15,000 at auction on the only rug on the planet
that meets a very restrictive collection criteria AND
buy NOTHING ELSE in the mean time. (And Warren pays himself
$300,000/year to wait. For 300K a year, I'll wait too.
Sign me up...)
A quick hypocrisy test: If you could climb into a time
machine and go back to Kuba in 1880 and buy brand new
Caucasian rugs, would you ? 
Regards,
Chuck
Chuck Wagner
10-28-2002 07:21 PM
R. John Howe
Member
Location:
Posts: 21
I noticed that last week "air sickness" bags got mentioned
on the Antique Roadshow on TV. One of the experts responding
to something outlandish that someone was collecting indicated
that there are at least two very formidable collections
of "air sickness" bags.
This suggests that they're almost getting respectable.
Soon you'll have to find another even more outlandish
example.
I wonder if anybody's doing "shunken heads." I remember
seeing lots of them as a child in "missionary slide shows."
Some headhunting natives seemed to collect them. Might
someone soon begin to speak with seeming nostalgia about
some aspects of headhunter societies. Mummies seem to
have been OK to collect for some time. "Natural" embalming
fluids, of course, were the best. Shrunken heads done
with synthetics are gradually losing some of their most
admirable qualities.
Would we characterize this as an "advanced" or "troublesome"
species of collecting neurosis?
Regards,
R. John Howe
10-28-2002 07:39 PM
Michael Bischof
Member
Location:
Posts: 28
how difficult it is to find the line between commercialism
and "real" weaves I must not repeat here - as we described
it in detail, again, in the kiim thread. Early times not
excluded!
and THEN you imperatively conclude
that the ONLY textiles worth of collecting are very early
piled rugs (not bearing the slightest suspicion of commercialism)
and early kilims.
Puh, not "imperatively", please. That is not my style
and is a contradiction to the types of weave that I prefer.
No, I publish my opinion and try my best to collect the
best observations and arguments and invite people to join
it. It is clear, anyway, that everybody collects what he likes
...
OK, I'm stretching it a bit - let me only say that I
find your ideas quite draconian and snobbish. ...
That's fine, anyway. One is entitled to his own opinions.
I would use different words, indeed. But it is the logical
point to which my taste and the measures that I had taken
up over these many years has leaded me. But I am not alone
... ;-)
The reason that started my previous posting was
that, in the old thread on "synthetic dyes and ethnographic
value" we already expressed different opinions on similar
matters - what should and shouldn't be collectable - so
you know that such different opinions exists
Indeed I knew, even from before.
THUS I think it should be more respectful
to avoid recommendations to people who don't agree with
you "to move to areas where the own talents are".
I did not sense my comments as low in respect:
sorry, Filiberto. Personally I like kind of "harsh" jokes
, understandable hopefully from my curriculum vitae and
my time spent in the Orient. To give you an idea: once
I went to a tea houe in Northern Turkey with a friend.
Another friend sat there with quite a silly expression in his
face. So I asked my companion: "Any special reason ? Look, he
looks so silly ?" His answer was loud and clear: "What should
he do ? He sits there and waits for the grave ...." A
hurricane of laughter from all people in the tea house. In
Central Anatolia the style is even stronger, but in a
direction that I would not like to cite here. So, in case
I have overdone it, sorry ! But I was under shock that
you did not see, or turn into adequate evaluation, the
huge difference between the Raack piece and the other
ones - where I must accept that the latest "supply" of
Tracy is in fact a happy exception for a piece of that
date, leaving the differences in dye quality aside). That
shows what can happen if she does it more relaxed - and
what harm commercial stress does to this type of
weaves. Within an otherwise boring workshop piece one
would have at least a finer weaves, more motives etc.
On the other hand, to remember that, you can see here
in a well documented case ( within the frame of natural dyes
!) what "decay" means .... as I respect the description of
Dudin and as I am aware that the situation in Anatolia was
even worse at that time ( and still is today, not to forget
that) I can add a new argument:
motives which are done without a ready design, but looking
on a similar own old piece, at least in some
cases
It is a matter of fact that these early village rugs with
very few exceptions are found only in fragmentary condition.
But see, please, what a chance this means for the ambitious
and tough scholar to get pieces of spirit and expression
for still moderate money ! Of course, no risk, no gain,
if one is able to distinguish late worn down rubbish from
the "real" pieces. That something comes as a fragment
does not mean great age or quality, by no means. So the
citation of Franses applies well here, I guess (seriously).
There have been quite a lot
of late fragments that came unusual "bold" or "crazy"
on the market as well ... crazy ecclecticizm plus the
impression of age by simply worn out can create wonders
! So one needs to establish "measures" in open discussion
. By the way: I see here that all this I should have written
in the kilim thread. But I never made any difference between
this type of village rugs and early
kilims.
Greetings,
Michael
PS. Steve, as I am rather a hunter than a collector I
claim to be free of that neurosis.
10-28-2002 08:12 PM
Filiberto Boncompagni
Administrator
Location: Amman, Jordan
Posts: 10
OK - Let's remove the word "imperatively". The sense looks
the same, though.
One last thing.
Forgive me if I go back to another of your postings in
this thread.
Please note that the "you may replace it by endless
time of grabbing in dusty backyards in the Orient to find
that one early piece" is not within everybody's reach.
Even for people who, like me, live in the region: no backyards
containing kilims in Lebanon - only rug shops - no such
stuff available in Egypt, VERY scarce opportunities here
in Jordan.
Chuck: That time-machine trip is one of my dreams. Of
course I would!
I guess I should change my US $ with golden
coins…
Regards,
Filiberto
10-29-2002 08:37 AM
Marvin Amstey
Member
Location:
Posts: 4
I don't doubt that your rug may be older than the others.
When I see 3 or 4 rugs of similar design - particularly
Turkomans - I think I can put them into some rank order
based on age. What I am skeptical about is the meaning
of the number, per se. Why couldn't there be "inventory
numbers" or "model numbers" in the early 19th century. There
certainly were inventories of famous estates in the 16th
century (Cardinal Woolsley) with very specific rug orders for
the estate. Unless there is a statement on the rug that the
number is a date (many examples exist), I remain a skeptic
- at least where 19th century rugs are concerned. Other
examples of my skepticism in this regard are the "dated"
Ladik rugs of the last decade of the 18th c. As Steve
said; we agree to differ.
Best regards,
Marvin
10-29-2002 09:06 PM
Rudolf Hilbert
Member
Location: Germany
Posts: 1
regarding your hypothetical inventory or model numbers
on the rugs in discussion:
Isn't it odd that numbers consistently begin with a 1,
mostly followed by a 2 or 3 and that in the majority of
cases there are 4 numbers present ?
For me the only one plausible explanation: These numbers
are meant as dates (and in most cases even the date/year
of production).
In this community there is no much an argumentation about
the validity of dates as long as the numbers begin with
a 1, followed by a 3. But in the case of a 1, followed
by a 2 immediately arguments are raised.
Greetings,
Rudi
10-29-2002 09:41 PM
Marvin Amstey
Member
Location:
Posts: 4
10-29-2002 10:29 PM
Filiberto Boncompagni
Administrator
Location: Amman, Jordan
Posts: 10
Actually I started collecting mummies when I lived in
Egypt. I had to stop because they have the bad habit to
run away during the night. 
Have an happy Halloween!
Filiberto
10-30-2002 05:57 PM
Vincent Keers
Member
Location: Utrecht
Posts: 10
This sure looks like my dear old Mum.
Where did you find her?
(She looks better then ever)
Happy Halloween?
These strange habits some cultures have ..........
By,by
Vincent
10-31-2002 01:14 AM
Michael Bischof
Member
Location:
Posts: 28
when we mention Halloween - what about real horror ? I
want to put now a horrifying question: when we use the
term "Fachralo" - what does it mean ? In other terms: who,
please, has made these rugs, in which context ? Can we sort
the data that are there and grade them a bit ( first hand,
tapitolyrics ....) ?
Have a nice day
Michael Bischof
10-31-2002 05:52 AM
Vincent Keers
Member
Location: Utrecht
Posts: 10
This is a Kilim! The border design looks like what we
mostly see on Fachralo rugs. Except for the one I showed,
as normal it's different.
My Mum is showing her new dress and hair do.
Doesn't she look great?
This picture has been made in 1910/1915 somewhere in Russia.
What this says about all the piled Fachralo rugs? Well,
the border design is a Tulip with leaves in this kilim.
And made in Russia.
I like my Mum, don't like the Kilim and I have one in
stock also but more purple and I can't remember where
it came from. Hope you'll forgive me.
Best regards.
Vincent
10-31-2002 06:53 PM
Michael
Bischof
Member
Location:
Posts: 28
what a disappointment ! Nobody to accept my challenge
and tell us what "Fachralo" means in the sense of
- who has made these rugs
- where
- in which socio-economic context ?
Is it that difficult ? I thought it would be a kind of
well-known thing as I constantly meet this term in the
carpet literature.
In case it is too obvious please be so kind to help an
uneducated European reader a little bit up with the latest
literature.
Yours sincerely
Michael Bischof
11-01-2002 08:20 PM
Jerry Raack
Member
Location: Pataskala, Ohio (near Columbus)
Posts: 9
From what I can tell, "Fachralo" is a term made up to
apply to a number of rugs with different designs. Nearly
all of them have a basic pallette made of Red, Blue, Ivory,
with lots of yellow/gold. There is also usually a green,
but it varies more than the other colors from what I've
seen.
I personally don't think all the rugs I've seen attributed
to Fachralo are all that related to each other. Further,
I don't know of any town called Fachralo. Perhaps that's
why you don't have anyone responding.
There are a lot of labels coined by Schurmann in his book,
to help us put lables on rugs. We seem to have this innate
desire to want to have an explanation for everything,
and a place of manufacture, or a peoples to assign manufacture
to. In reality, the pieces labeled as Fachralo may have
been made over a wide area, by a number of different people.
Or maybe not. However, I've read nothing definitive on
this topic anywhere.
Certainly nearly all of the late 19th/early 20th century
examples we see were manufactured for sale in the West,
and could have been made in a number of places. I believe
that certain designs in much older rugs (early 19th century)
probably were made in a locale -- but where? For instance,
the rug I showed to start this Show and Tell thread off
has a design that I believe was very local to an area --
possibly a single village somewhere. But later examples differ
from it fairly significantly in color and I believe structure
as well. Hence, these could have been made in a number of
areas -- made because the design was successful in the
West and of commercial value.
Well, how's that for a long answer with little concrete
in it?
Jerry Raack
Pataskala, Ohio
11-02-2002 12:45 AM
Registered: Apr 2002 Hallo
everybody, hallo Jerry Raack, Registered: Jan 2002 Michael, __________________ Registered: Dec 2001 Dear
Michael, Registered: Feb 2002 I don't
have any doubt that some of these Kazak "names" have some
currency, it's just that they're not substantiated by
any credible fieldwork. Most of the names used by Ulrich
Schuermann to pigeonhole Caucasian rugs came from an Armenian
dealer in Belgium (who subsequently claimed Schuermann
misunderstood/misused them in his now famous picture book
on Caucasian rugs.) The names denote mountain ranges,
lakes, river valleys, etc, and suffer from being filtered
from Azari through Armenian, through German, to English.
You think anything got lost along the way? Registered: Dec 2001 Hi
Mike, Registered: Jul 2002 Dear
Steve, Registered: Apr 2002 Hallo
everybody, Registered: Dec 2001 Dear
Michael, Registered: Feb 2002 Actually,
there is data. You just have to dig for it - and make some
educated guesses where the data don't exist. No data means
you can't make educated guesses. We all try to solve for
the unknown, with varying levels of success. The level
of unknown is one of the major elements that makes rug
studies interesting. It seems to me that anthropologists
trying to date very early human remains deal with some
of the ame issues. Registered: Dec 2001 Hi
People, Registered: Dec 2001 Hi
Richard, Registered: Jan 2002 Filiberto, __________________ Registered: Apr 2002 Hallo
everybody, dear Filiberto, Registered: Dec 2001 You’re
welcome, Michael, Registered: Feb 2002 Two
thoughts: Registered: Dec 2001 Hi
Mike, Registered: Apr 2002 Hello
everybody, Registered: Dec 2001 Hi Michael
and all, Registered: Apr 2002 Hallo
everybody, dear Filiberto, Registered: Dec 2001 Hi
People,
Author
Michael Bischof
Member
Location:
Posts: 38
thanks a lot for your straight reply ! I am still somehow
under shock. "Caucasian" village rugs are for sure the
biggest part of carpet collecting, Fachralos are in high
esteem - and yet no mighty stream of answers to such an
easy question ? Does this mean that a lot of people use
terms that have a content that one cannot describe as
"questionable" but that is non-existant at all ?
Well, how's that for a long answer with little
concrete in it?
In research I guess the main enemy is not plain ignorance
but "half-education" that displays/pretends as being informed.
Understandably in our times of the "publish-or-perish"
academic competitions. But it makes us stand on banana
shells - and we feel that we have a firm stand. In such
a situation it might be a progress to lean back and state:
I do not know anything for sure at all !
Why the correct answer is essential I tried to outline
in acontribution of today in the kilim salon
discussion with a particular type of much earlier cottage
production in Western Anatolia. If I transform results from
there to your early village rug fragment my (speculative !)
assumption would suggest a similar background of your
piece. I would even do one step further: this type of
carpets and the textile culture that can produce them
I would describe as "(Anatolian/Eastern Anatolian/Caucasian)
settled Turcoman" and I would include quite a lot of early
work ( though of unclear=unwitnessed origin) from that
area in casethese are pieces
that could be made without the use of ready designs, comparable
to that "cottage industry/old style" as we described above.
What we should know then is:
- the place of origin ( A-piece or not in our terms)
- the group that produced it
- who made the yarns, dyes ...
- the socio-economic frame ( made by order, for the own
use with some occassional sales on demand by local* people
or something restricted for the own use ...)
When we have these answers in a quality that can be cross
checked then we may start to erase questions of mother
goddesses, vultures and so on. Till then: banana shells
....
Greetings,
Michael Bischof
11-02-2002 09:44 AM
Jerry Raack
Member
Location: Pataskala, Ohio (near Columbus)
Posts: 10
I suspect I should not have posted my reply since I did
not do any original research. I based my speculation on
ideas of others who I know did do some research, and which
I've read. There are lots of opinions and speculation
out there, but few facts that can be verified. We each
sort through material using our own criteria and then
believe some parts, and not others. The accumulation makes
up our opinions.
I too wish I had answers to the things you ask. I don't,
and I don't know where to go for single source to definitive
answers.
Sorry,
Jerry Raack
Pataskala, Ohio
11-02-2002 01:23 PM
Filiberto Boncompagni
Administrator
Location: Amman, Jordan
Posts: 16
Sorry to disappoint you but if Jerry doesn’t know any
town called Fachralo it doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
There are several villages with similar names in the weaving
areas of Kazak-Ganja.
See map.
You can inquiry by yourself visiting this link:
http://www.calle.com/world/
I have no time for a long answer with little concrete
in it right now. Hopefully tomorrow.
In the meantime I’ll watch for those banana bombers. 
Regards,
Filiberto
11-02-2002 01:25 PM
Mike Tschebull
Member
Location: CT, USA
Posts: 3
To paraphrase George Lucas, that was long ago and far
away. The best thing to do now is to recognize like groups
of rugs, on the basis of structure, color, wool type,
and maybe design, and resist using those Schuermannesque
names, even though they provide a handy shorthand. I've
never used them, for good reason. Wean uourself.
To know more about "Kazak" weaving, you need to understand
the commercial impetus for pile weaving, the geography
of the area (volcanic soil), population composition and
movement, and the level of outside interference. Any ethnographic
and historical material you can read will help, as will
reading moreorless contemporary studies of rug weaving
cultures in Iran and Turkey.
11-02-2002 02:27 PM
Steve Price
Administrator
Location:
Posts: 45
You wrote, about Kazak rugs, ...you need to understand
the commercial impetus for pile weaving, the geography
of the area (volcanic soil), population composition and
movement, and the level of outside interference...
How does knowing that the soil is volcanic contribute
to what we know about the rugs?
Regards,
Steve Price
11-02-2002 03:26 PM
Richard Farber
Member
Location: Tel Aviv
Posts: 6
you asked
"How does knowing that the soil is volcanic contribute
to what we know about the rugs?"
actually I could imagine that the makeup of the soil directly
influences the plants that grow in it and indirectly the
quality of the wool taken from animals eating those plants.
Perhaps at some future date an analysis will be possible
that could determine where the wool is from [as well as
when and with what it was dyed etc etc. based on trace
elements that came from the soil and water of the area where
the animal fed.
best
Richard Farber
11-02-2002 04:29 PM
Michael Bischof
Member
Location:
Posts: 38
it seems to me that Mike Tschebull wrote the "key note"
in this thread.
"To know more about "Kazak" weaving, you need to understand
the commercial impetus for pile weaving, the geography
of the area (volcanic soil), population composition and
movement, and the level of outside interference. Any ethnographic
and historical material you can read will help, as will
reading moreorless contemporary studies of rug weaving
cultures in Iran and Turkey."
The "volcanic" issue I leave aside ( it would lead to
the most expensive kind of research !).
Quite many places bear the name "Fachralo". Without further
research then I agree to drop such "names" as they mean
nothing.
Unless we would know which of the different "Fachralo"
places was really the place of weaving plus one must give
witness that it was a local style ( that people settled
there wove these carpets regardless of which ethnic origin
they had). If it would come out that a certain group (
that partially settled in Fachralo) was thre creator of
these rugs the name "Fachralo" again would be meaningless as
we would find the same rugs elsewhere. The name of this group
then should be the denominator.
That means, in fact, that besides knowledge that we gain
from researches in Turkey ( may be in Iran ? I do not
know ...) where until today weaving exists and that we
must transfer to this particular "Kazak" group then we
do not have "hard data" . Is this correct ?
Then I got curious and managed to download the lecture
that you, Mike, did at the New England Rug Society
(http://www.ne-rugsociety.org/newsletter/rugl95.pdf).
There is an interesting remark about Zakatala rugs : "
They also have less color saturation because less dye
was used, presumably because of the expense of dye materials.
"
The same impression we have with many, even early, Anatolian
kilims and village rugs - apparently people bought the
dyes from professional dyers ( drop the undyed wool, take
it back after the dyes are done). In this exchange the
saturation is directly expressed in money terms - but
now look again please at the Raack fragment and the later
pieces:
all the reds are from madder, but they differ in saturation
and in how "pure" the tone is ( both money-dependant properties
of the dyeing process). Therefore the early piece shows
the "great" dye and the younger ones compromise on dye
quality. This red with a clear brownish cast is better
than todays cottage industries' "production red", but
it is recognizeable. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is
kind of decay, isn't it ?
This is connected with the habit of using dyed wefts.
The poor people used natural browns ( not connected to
any ethnic topic ! It is not like that that brown wefts mean
Kurdish - just a poor peoples habit) or weak reds
(sometimes it is claimed that the rest of the madder dye bath
was used for it). In case Turkish weavers have the choice,
we tested this, they instinctively prefer strong dyed
wefts. And when they are not paid by knot or m² they immediately
start to create additional graphical effects using different
coloured wefts in the same piece. They even made a carpet
that has a kilim-type motive on its back, not perceivable
from the upper side. Spontaneously, no "ordered mistake".
So, damned, the longer we discuss the more it should be
clear what a quality difference is between this early
fragment and the complete but late examples ( with the
one exemption of Tracy's "happy Kazak" which has a more
"joyful spirit").
Greetings,
Michael Bischof
11-03-2002 09:58 AM
Filiberto Boncompagni
Administrator
Location: Amman, Jordan
Posts: 16
Here are some answers to your questions:
A - Where Fachralo rugs were woven.
PROBABLY in the Fachralo village in nowadays Georgia.
BUT:
There is some confusion about the spelling of Fachralo:
Fakhralo, Fakraly, Fekhraly.
No wonder why. One of the reasons is the translation/filtering
of the name through different languages, as Mike said.
Another very good reason is that in modern Azerbaijan
there are two Fakhraly (you can see them on the map, one
name is truncated, sorry) and one Farakhly
They could be woven in one of them as well.
They could be also from Sevan, in Armenia, by the way.
Wright and Wertime, who published what seems a very serious
study on the matter (Caucasian Carpets & Covers) have
another say:
"One of the Kazak rug types is called ‘Fachralo’ in the
Western marketplace. This group of rugs is regularly cited
in the Azerbaijan literature as coming from Demirchilyar
and other villages just to the west of Kazak town. The
Demirchilyar type is distinctive and ‘Fachralo’ likely
results from a garbling with the Ganja variety, due to
similarity in format and design." No pictures included.
Great, isn’t it?
There are THREE Demirchilyar villages in Azerbaijan, one
of them very close to the northern Fakhraly - I just added
it to the map.
Fact is that the rugs woven in the region roughly shown
on the map (the Kazak - Ganja region), share the same
woven structure.
The little we know about their classification comes from
Kerimov’s book "Azerbaijan Carpets". The book was used
by Schurmann for his "Caucasian Rugs" and his nomenclature
was used since then.
Ian Bennett in his book of the same title doesn’t make
any mystery that such attributions are not to be taken
for granted.
The only reasonable conclusion, therefore, is that Fachralo
rugs were made somewhere in THAT region.
B - Who wove them? According to Wright & Wertime,
the population in the two districts (Kazak and Ganja)
was mainly composed by Azeris and Armenians, the first
being the majority and the more prolific weavers. There
is no way to distinguish which one wove what… Unless one
finds an Armenian inscription on a rug.
C - in which socio-economic context
This is hard to tell too. I see the point. The commercial
production, yes?
I quote Richard Wright (co-author of the above mentioned
book) from HALI 86, page 67:
"Rugs always had a dual domestic/commercial role and were
made with varying materials by fingers of different talents.
Thus the question of how much the craft industry revival
and its companions overseas export market distorted ‘traditional’
weaving may well remain problematic…
It is, at bottom, unnecessary to get hung
up on the unproven assumptions that some decades somehow
produced more authentic rugs than did others."
Conclusion:
Not exactly your grade A pieces. Right?
Now, in answer to your phrase:
"In research I guess the main enemy is not plain
ignorance but "half-education" that displays/pretends as being
informed…
In such a situation it might be a progress to lean back
and state: I do not know anything for sure at all !
Why the correct answer is essential I tried to outline in
a contribution of today in the kilim salon discussion…"
First, WE ARE NOT exactly researchers here.
Then, what about if there is no correct answer to your
questions because
THERE
ARE
NO
MORE
DATA
AVAILABLE?
I guess it is some time you are following our discussions
on Turkotek. You should know by now that most of our debates
are on attributions. Given the lack of information and
expertise in the Rugdom we exchange technical data (woven
structures), photos, excerpts from books and so on just
to try to find out more about rustic/tribal rugs.
That is generally done with humility, because, as you
said, "nothing is for sure at all" and we already knew
that, thanks.
Regards,
Filiberto
11-03-2002 11:07 AM
Mike Tschebull
Member
Location: CT, USA
Posts: 3Data
11-03-2002 12:05 PM
Steve Price
Administrator
Location:
Posts: 45
One of the things that seems to have slipped through the
cracks here is that there is more than one reason why
people do geographic attributions. The first, which we
thrash about in very often here, is a sort of intellectual
curiosity collectors have about where their treasures were
made.
There's a second, sometimes very important reason: the
attribution constitutes a kind of shorthand by which someone
can describe a rug to someone else. Someone telling me
that he has, say, a Fachralo constitutes a description
of the design that takes only one word. It isn't precise,
but it narrows it down a lot. Likewise for most other
"place name" descriptions that we use for Caucasian rugs.
Since the kustar system essentially involved governmentally
dictated designs being made in particular locations in
very large numbers, it turns out that most of these attributions
are also geographically correct. Some probably aren't,
for the reasons mentioned here. That doesn't destroy the
utility of the second reason for using these attribution
names.
Regards,
Steve Price
11-03-2002 01:30 PM
Steve Price
Administrator
Location:
Posts: 45
You're right, and I understand your point: If we
know the relationship of soil type to wool (or dyes, for
that matter), then it is useful to know the soil type
of an area. And maybe somebody already knows that - I
don't. But if nobody knows it yet, my question remains. Why
must I know about soil type to fully understand Kazak
rugs?
Regards,
Steve Price
11-03-2002 01:33 PM
Chuck Wagner
Member
Location: Saudi Arabia
Posts: 3Where
it's at...
The elusive Fakhralo currently resides at:
41.22.22N 44.38.31E
Regards,
Chuck
Chuck Wagner
11-03-2002 07:00 PM
Michael Bischof
Member
Location:
Posts: 38
wow, "great respect" is the formula appropriate for your
long and detailed contribution!
So we know there are places called "Fachralo" indeed.
- By the way: "Demirci" is a Turkish name. "Demir" means
iron, "demirci" is the person who works with iron.
Anyway, this is progress.
What we do not know (yet?) is: were the pieces woven in
the township/village or is Fachralo the name of the outlet
gate,
the place of trade (like "Aksaray" or "Konya" never means
that pieces have been woven there), the denominator of
the "Hinterland" (vicinity)?
The "face" of the weave is clearly Turkic. And, at least
the early examples, are not woven using ready designs.
If one puts aside the overall image (but includes the
"minor" motives) it would not be possible to distinguish this
"Kazak" material from Eastern or even Central Anatolian
village rugs.
Then you cite Richard Wright, an author that I know and
respect:
"Rugs always had a dual domestic/commercial role and were
made with varying materials by fingers of different talents.
Thus the question of how much the craft industry revival
and its companions overseas export market distorted traditional
weaving may well remain problematic. It is, at bottom,
unnecessary to get hung up on the unproven assumptions
that some decades somehow produced more authentic rugs
than did others."
This I question. Just by comparing the piece of Jerry
with the later pieces we see such a decline, at least
concerning dye qualities (which is normally the "first
victim") and (difficult to prove) in the way designs were
applied. I sense
(a total subjective statement) a decline as well though
I question whether the majority of Kazak rugs was ever
made using ready designs. This is the privilege of todays
cottage production in Turkey, in Azerbaidschan and in
Pakistan (where Caucasians are copied as well) - and the
results are "thoroughly dead", not a trace of warmth left
in the corpse.
" Then, what about if there is no correct answer to your
questions because
THERE
ARE
NO
MORE
DATA
AVAILABLE?"
Sorry, but most likely you do not know that:
- the guys who smuggled the perfect kept dowry pieces
from the Caucasus to Turkey after the Iron Curtain fell
knew exactly where their houses are, where they families
came from. This material was available.
- a lot of early "Caucasian" fragments that came onto
the market in recent years where found "at the spot" -
all this knowledge would have been available. But not
without "pressure", by its own. What of them is "Caucasian"
is the question, by the way. In case their real origin
is covered and a lot of helpful "improving-the-look" is
done the case is closed, anyway.
My key experience once was that we gave a 17th/18th century
Eastern Central Anatolian prayer rug to a Vienna dealer
of Turkish origin together with the correct place of origin
(Develi) on consignment. He could not sell it. When it
came back I asked him how he had offered it. Smilingly
he said: I had offered it as "Bergama". "Develi" is no trade
mark that any customer would know, you know!
- To my surprise most of the dealers to which I reported
the story agreed with his statement. Ok, in the daily
reality of the trade it might be like that. But we should
not forget that here we deal with still unresearched items
that we claim to be pieces of art. In order not to leave
this as a claim in vain we, the people who sense
it is art, must prove that it is art. Researching the
character of those weave, defining the weavers inputs,
is indispensable then. How can we do that if we accept
that the "passport" of the objects are obscured? With
kilims this problem is even bigger.
As of today to understand this type of "Kazak" carpets
one has to the best of my knowledge to draw analogies
to research that was done in Anatolia, where it seems
to be easier to do such research - as long as one deals
with"graded" pieces. Analogies are the second best result
only.
Greetings and again: thank you, Filiberto!
Michael Bischof
11-04-2002 07:21 AM
Filiberto Boncompagni
Administrator
Location: Amman, Jordan
Posts: 16
We are speaking of village rugs, so my guess is they were
woven right there (in the villages) and/or at close range.
This is, at lest, what I understand from my readings.
Then they were sold in "big" cities, probably Tiflis and
Ganja.
Caucasian Carpets & Covers has two beautiful old photographs
- one of a carpet shop in Tiflis, the other of the bazaar
of Elizavetpol. The Kazak district was administratively
part of the Elizavetpol Province, was oriented westward
owing to its position in the Kur valley and it had roads
and rail links to Tiflis (Tbilisi).
In case one wonders were Elizavetpol is: that is another
name for Ganja (or Gandja, Genje, Gendje) and it is spelled
"Gäncä" on my MS Word atlas.
In the same atlas Kazak town (which DOES exist, Mike)
is spelled "Qazax" and Borchalo village is indicated also
as "Marneuli". So I guess if one doesn’t find on an atlas,
say, Karachov, it is because probably is indicated under
a totally different name.
Perhaps the Azeris and the Armenians used different names
for the same places…
When I ask "what about if there are not more data available"
I mean they are not available to the buyer of the rug
because the seller too hasn’t the slightest idea from
where the rug comes.
Let’s say, for example, that Jerry bought his rug from
a garage sale and the seller told him it was a Persian
rug?
So, in a similar case, where one can go to find out the
origin of his carpet?
(besides Turkotek, of course)
Regards,
Filiberto
11-04-2002 09:34 AM
Mike Tschebull
Member
Location: CT, USA
Posts: 3Those
dwatted names
>Many "pickers" of rugs, bags and kilims in the field
not only have no commercial interest in giving anything
but the most marketable name to their find, they are interested
in the hunt, not the history/anthropology issues. Of course,
this set of issues is not unique to the collection of
Islamic textiles.
>The word "Kazak" is all over period maps and in the
literature. Attributing the rug name to a rail head is
surely not correct.
11-04-2002 01:01 PM
Steve Price
Administrator
Location:
Posts: 45
If Kazak is geographically identifiable, what's "surely
not correct" about calling rugs that were made or marketed
through it "Kazaks"? It seems to me that attributing rugs
to places where they were made or marketed is a pretty
generally accepted way of doing things. "Afshar" is a respectable
attribution for rugs from a region in Iran; "Hamadan"
is equally acceptable for rugs marketed through the place
with that post office name. What point am I missing here?
Regards,
Steve Price
11-04-2002 02:58 PM
Michael Bischof
Member
Location:
Posts: 38
today I got a mail from a Swiss collector. I am not
sure whether your higher esteem of authentic weaving over
workshop productions based on the argument "authentic
character" is justified. May be it is simply romantic.
I am not sure either. This one has to find out by research.
My own, personal judgement is this: if one could prove
that these early village rugs and kilims are what we call
here "abgestiegenes Kulturgut" (coarse simplifications
of higher developed palace-type material and aesthetical
culture) my interest in it would drop to zero - but I
would have escaped from the prison of my own romantic
misunderstanding.
Until now it does not look like that: what we have found
out until now is (http://www.turkotek.com/salon_00091...al.html
; http://www.turkotek.com/salon_00091/geometrical.html)that
these workshop designs have been extracted from the sources
that the "village rugs" and kilims lived from at earlier
times but that later secondary "simplification" happened
in many cases, with rugs (commercially more interesting)
much more often than with kilims where the cases of alien
transfers are much more rare.
Until 1992 I had
- the chance to study books and compare pictures, as anybody
else has
- direct access into the contemporenous cottage industry
in Turkey, later to that of other countries. That means
in frank language: no first hand access to communication
with weavers while they were weaving. A cottage
industry person may drop the loom or the wool or the design
or all of it at her house, have a tea ... and then he
leaves.
What happens when the weave is done is "out of sight".
Since 1992 I had this access and that changed my attitude,
the way I view village rugs and kilims, a big lot. I discovered,
so to speak, the opportunities where she can add some
one "creativity" into her job - if she has the right material
(yes, Filiberto, natural dyes as long as she works with
"traditional imagery" - ;-) ) and the "frame" is okay
(not to be paid by knot or additional money or tolerance
for end kilims or details that require additional labour).
So I am quite sure that this style of weaving differs/differed
from workshop weaving. But for old pieces one has to document
it - otherwise it is an empty romantic claim (see above),
one dealers fairy tale more giving reason for a higher
price. In one case I must go back one step: for striped
kilims the background is really not very important. They
depend totally on the "lucky moment" the weaver might
have had - or not - and therefore excellent striped kilims
are so rare. This "lucky moment" no one can command or
organize.
If this idea of how early village rugs were done is correct
the next step would logically be to have a close look
to the impact of the slight changes that the developing
cottage industry had imposed onto this weaving culture
in the course of the 19th century.
At the end, Filiberto: Jerry did not buy it from a garage
sale, for sure not. This type of early weave is
extreme rare to non-existent in the West, as are early
kilims. A lot of late pieces we imported, yes, for to
use them and with a total different taste! About pl. 16
of Rageth or about Jerry's fragment people would have
laughed!
Who bought damaged fragments of high aesthetic value at
about 1880 or 1920? No, they are now being hunted for
in the Orient and the pickers know where they got it.
It is really similar to what we described for this outstanding
early Ermenek kilim in our essay. No way of "information
no longer available" ...
Greetings,
Michael Bischof
11-04-2002 03:05 PM
Filiberto Boncompagni
Administrator
Location: Amman, Jordan
Posts: 16
"Jerry did not buy it from a garage sale,
for sure not. This type of early weave is extreme rare to
non-existent in the West" uh? I love your
sureness.
I said "let’s say", meaning with that let’s suppose.
OK, OK, never mind.
Jerry, please, I don’t want to know where you bought it
and you don’t need to tell us, just elucidate us about
the information you got from the seller.
Was this information correct and/or satisfactory?
Do you think that with some convincing method (torture
for example 
) you could extract more data from him? Did he give
you the picker’s cellphone number?
Regards,
Filiberto
11-05-2002 07:25 AM
Michael
Bischof
Member
Location:
Posts: 38
"Jerry did not buy it from a garage sale, for sure not.
This type of early weave is extreme rare to non-existent
in the West" uh? I love your sureness."
Well, of course there are many ways to get hold of antique
pieces. One may regularly check what we call here "flea
markets" and quite often one can find, for astonishing
low money, surprising pieces. But all of them are of the
kind of things that had been imported to the West at their
time - never things that were neglected. So one
might find antique kilims. Old carpet dealers say that until
about 1920-1930 sometimes they were used as packing materials
to wrap valuable rugs ... these kilims may have been with
natural dyes (with Turkish pieces this normally means that
they are antique) but if you look close these are the
late kilims.
These have their value at auctions as good furniture pieces
for sure and are cheaper at flea markets. I once met a
collector from Berlin who made up his yastik collections
only from "Haushaltsauflösungen" (when a residence is
departed), but these were all very late pieces plus he
could not learn anything about the yastiks he got this
way. He must hope that some other people study yastiks at the
source, publish good research results and then he may try to
start simply to identify his pieces.
A lot of "access types" exist, but one can grade these
as well according to the informations they give.
My conviction that this early piece of Jerry did not come
from a garage sale was an assumption, of course. May be
I am wrong. I would be surprised ... but if it came from
the Orient in the last 20 years such informations would
have been obtainable.
Let us give it another turn: why are serious museum people
or anthopologists so "shy" to touch weaves? Normally they
long for each chance to research and publish ... I find
this reluctance astonishing: from the Agäis coast to NW-China
the main artistic expression of many peoples were these
weaves (not the international Islamic artisanry) , the
output of their female population. Has this neglence anything
to do with usances of the trade, may be ?
Greetings,
Michael
11-05-2002 03:07 PM
Steve Price
Administrator
Location:
Posts: 45
Although I cannot reveal the source because it would violate
our policy against promoting dealers, Jerry's rug came
from a very well known, highly respected dealer.
Regards,
Steve Price
11-05-2002 03:17 PM
Registered: Apr 2002 Hi
everybody, Registered: Dec 2001 Well,
let's wait for Jerry's answer. Registered: Jan 2002 Hi
Everyone, __________________ Registered: Dec 2001 Hi
Jerry, Registered: Feb 2002 With
the exception of the group of Kazaks of which Jerry's
rug is a member (You have to wonder why it's an exception),
most of the really interesting old Kazaks are "main carpet"
format, i.e., about 165 cm X 210 cm. It has been speculated
for years that these large rugs were originally intended
to be used for bedding, much like their Anatolian equivalents.
They certainly have the right format. Heavy Kazak so-called
"Qara Qoyunlu" slit-tapestry kilims are exactly the same
width, but slightly longer. Registered: Dec 2001 Thank
you very much, Jerry. Registered: Jan 2002 Michael, __________________ Registered: Dec 2001 Hi
Jerry, Registered: Apr 2002 Hallo
everybody, hallo Jerry Raack, Registered: Jan 2002 Hmmmm, __________________ Registered: Apr 2002 Hallo
everybody, hallo Jerry Raack, Registered: Dec 2001 Hi
Jerry, Registered: Jul 2002 Dear
turkotek readers, Registered: Jan 2002 Richard! Registered: Jul 2002 dear
long ears Registered: Dec 2001 Dear
Richard and Vincent, Registered: Dec 2001 Hi
Filiberto, Registered: Dec 2001 Hi
Steve. Registered: May 2002 Somebody
must have already asked this, but michael b's system places
great emphasis on exactly where something came from. Given
that the Turkish empire was huge (e.g., to the edge of
Vienna) and that people and presumably things moved around
in such empires (causing lots of trouble when they fall
apart), how can we really know where something that is
quite old came from? Registered: Dec 2001 Hi
Bob,
Author
Michael Bischof
Member
Location:
Posts: 42
and this means: without publishing in any form the sources
of the gentleman it could be found out whether this was
a local "garage sale" (that means: if the piece was found
in the sediments of the West) or whether it came in via
the Orient in the last 20 years, yes?
I mean: Jerry Raack could, if he would like, find out
much more asking the person from whom he acquired it.
At least this seems to be an advantage ...
Greetings,
Michael Bischof
11-05-2002 04:12 PM
Filiberto Boncompagni
Administrator
Location: Amman, Jordan
Posts: 23
I hope he still keeps on reading this endless thread!
Filiberto
11-05-2002 04:41 PM
Jerry Raack
Member
Location: Pataskala, Ohio (near Columbus)
Posts: 13
I'm still following the thread, but much more reluctant
to chime in recently. Anyway, I'll add that as far as
I know, the piece was in the USA, then made its way to
Europe, where I bought it, and carried it back to the USA. How
it originally got to the USA, I have no idea.
I have enjoyed the discourse about "Fachralo" and origin
of the piece.
When someone tells me that they have a Fachralo, this
design is NOT the first one that comes to mind however.
For me, the design that comes to mind is the one on page 43,
picture 24 of Ian Bennett's book "Oriental Rugs: Volume 1,
Caucasian ". I have seen more than 20 of that design
for every one of the design I put up to start this discussion
(maybe more). Bennett shows another prayer rug design as
well that is quite common.
Are they all "Fachralo" area rugs? Bennett thought so,
and so do many others. It seems that each label we have
for Caucasian pieces encompasses a set of common designs,
AND usually color scheme. It is true, that we use these
sets to help gain an understanding when talking to one
another about our rugs. But, do they really constitute the
place of origin? That should be the real topic for discussion.
I'll agree that there are often times places with the names we
use (or lakes or whatever). We have lots of examples of
"place names" that indicate either weaves, colors, designs,
or combinations of these.
Then, of course, we have the "one-of-a-kind" pieces that
don't seem to conform to the norm for any group. We still
try to attribute these types of pieces to one of the more
common "labels" in an attempt to satisfy ourselves of
some origin. THere are often lively debates about these
non-conforming pieces, and our choice of labels.
Personally, I'd rather talk about the STRUCTURE of pieces
and try to group these together than utilize design. Even
though the design is often of value. As I've read many
times, and can believe, the way a rug is woven is usually a
good indicator of the region in which a person grew up
learning how to weave. The colors and type of wool often are
an indicator of the region the rug was woven in (assuming that
the wool was dyed locally) as the plant material and
techniques for dying were likely regionalized. The designs
may have been local to a community originally, but with
increased travel, and more communication, designs probably
migrated more than techniques and colors.
If you doubt that the structure is important to an understanding
of where the weaver was from, think about your own ways
of doing things, and how ingrained many of the techniques
you use around your home, on your computer, or in some
sport (golf swing for example) are. The desire and ability
for people to change these things after they have been
learned is very low. Hence, no matter where you go, you
will do things more or less the same way. The resulting
"structure" is an everlasting identifier. For example,
think about your own speech. You have an accent of some
type (compared to others). If you move to another locality
with a different accent, you will not readily change to
the new accent. Instead you will stay the course. Your
accent is a giveaway to your original location.
Thus I believe it is with the structure that a young girl
learns as she grows up. She can change her locale, but
she will weave the same way, but possibly with different
wool and dyes available locally. Hence, I think talking
about the structure of pieces is important to gaining
an insight as to their relation to other pieces.
Comments?
Jerry Raack
Pataskala, Ohio
11-05-2002 11:31 PM
Steve Price
Administrator
Location:
Posts: 58
The issue of whether similar design or similar structure
is the better indicator of common origin is one about
which most people agree: it's similar structure.
The problem is finding a way to be reasonably sure of
what that common origin really is. It's one thing to place a
bunch of rugs into a structure-based group, quite another to
identify the origin of that group.
We devoted a Salon to that awhile back. In essence, the
fact is that the early documentation of rug origins, such as
it is, hardly ever includes structure. It usually refers to
visual characteristics. The process, as a rule, is to take
rugs with that combination of visual characteristics, study
their structure, and then adopt the structural criteria
from it. That is, the structural criteria are usually
based on grouping by visual characteristics to begin with.
So we wind up in a little loop. What to do when something
matches the visual characeristics but not the structural
ones of a particular weaving source? Generally, we accept
the structure as being more reliable. Perhaps it is. But
one thing to consider in arriving at that conclusion is
that if the ambiguous piece had been discovered
much earlier, and by the guys who were doing the classifying
then, the structural criteria might have included these
and they wouldn't be ambiguous.
For example: We accept that Salor weavings are usually
knotted asymmetric open to the left, but that about 20%
are asymmetric open to the right. The palette and other
visual characteristics provide the foundation upon which
this rests. We accept that most, but not all Yomud stuff is
symmetrically knotted. That is, in some instances we are quite
comfortable with giving structure a back seat to visual
characteristics.
I have no simple solution to this dilemma, but it's worth
being aware that it exists.
Regards,
Steve Price
11-06-2002 12:05 AM
Mike Tschebull
Member
Location: CT, USA
Posts: 4
There is a "Fachralo" design type among Kazak "main carpets",
with two medallions on red/rose or green/blue. The Textile
Museum owns a very good one. Many apparent early "main
carpets" are finely and loosely woven (the TM piece is),
and I think they contain the design reservoir for later Kazak
rugs.
One implication of what I'm voicing here is that most
Kazak prayer rugs aren't, as a group, very old (for what
that's worth). This is born out by dates in Kazak payer rugs
in general.
11-06-2002 01:41 AM
Filiberto Boncompagni
Administrator
Location: Amman, Jordan
Posts: 23
Well, it was easy to guess from what you said that you
did not have many data about your fragment, but I needed
your confirmation.
When I wrote about the "garage sale", it was only to present
an hypothetical situation where generally one cannot
get a lot of information from the seller. Actually, "flea
market" should have been better.
Anyway…
The only fact you got from your dealer, you said, was
that the fragment crossed twice the Atlantic. I can guess
he sold it as a Kazak, at least...
Not an awful lot of information.
I'm not suggesting the dealer withdrew it from you and/or
you didn't insist muscularly enough (third degree!) to
get it - more likely he didn't have any more knowledge
to share with you.
So, after a very long discussion, here we are:
This fragment, as for structure, design and coloring should
be a Kazak (meaning with that it was woven in NW Caucasus),
probably a Facharalo, but this is not absolutely sure for
reasons already exposed.
The date on the rug seems genuine.
It is beautiful, in spite of its poor condition.
It was obtained from the trade.
These are "the evidence and the witnesses, the documents
!"
Michael, please, could you tell us how this rug fits in
your "grading" scale?
For sure it is not an A-piece.
It is not very clear to me the difference between B and
C. I gather, from your answer to Richard Farber, grade A
and B apply only to pieces found in situ, so it should
be a C piece, right?
Thanks.
Regards,
Filiberto
11-06-2002 08:34 AM
Jerry Raack
Member
Location: Pataskala, Ohio (near Columbus)
Posts: 13
Can you give me a direct URL to your "grading" system?
I'd like to read what its all about.
Filberto,
The seller of this rug did not have to supply me with
much information. When I saw the rug, I immediately purchased
it without hesitation. How often do you find things like
this on the market? How it arrived in his hands did not
really concern me, and I doubt he knew much more than
he told me about where the piece came from, but I'll ask
just to see if he did know more. For sure he won't provide
names of people he got them from. When your in business,
giving away your sources for good pieces isn't something that
strikes me as the right thing to do.
By the way, I agree it is a Kazak rug, and I do believe
the date to be accurate, and it is a beautiful object
despite its battered condition.
Thanks to everyone for their lively discussion,
Jerry Raack
Pataskala, Ohio
11-06-2002 01:41 PM
Steve Price
Administrator
Location:
Posts: 58
Michael's grading system is presented concisely in a footnote
near the bottom of the page of his
previous Salon .
I'm told that the French use a similar system for grading
antique furniture, although I don't have first hand information
on that.
Regards,
Steve Price
11-06-2002 01:49 PM
Michael Bischof
Member
Location:
Posts: 42
"Grading" ( from the footnote link in the "Kilim" essay)::
"We discriminate 3 classes of pieces:
* A-pieces: the real origin of the piece is known and
can (theoretically ) communicated to the client or to
a honourable middle-man. The "fate" of the piece is known
(who took it to whome, did anybody try to wash it etc.),
too.
* B-pieces: a first-hand source intelligence about the
origin is not available. More or less accurate "guesses"
from experienced people. The "fate" of the piece is known
- from the very moment when we got hold of it.
* C-pieces: obtained from the trade. We propose the German
expression „Strandgut", debris that is left on the beach
after a storm. Or we propose to compare it with a second
hand car of unknown provenance, without papers, motor
and chassis numbers are removed. Nothing is certain, the
piece is "as it is". We cannot take further responsibilities
except for what we do (have done)
with the piece."
The reason for putting up and proposing such a scheme
were "innovations" that started to happen even in the
treatment of antquities
after about 1992 and about which we had reported here
on Turkotek in a previous salon "Repair and fakes - a
smooth transition..."
Any new idea is not easy to communicate. But within this
one there a two different goals:
- to try to keep the "identity papers" of a piece that
is found in situ ( yes, Filiberto, that is what
we mean exactly ) as a basic requirement for further and/or
later studies. How necessary this is our discussion has
shown, as I guess.
- to define the level of integrity that the piece has
or may have. Who has done what with it ? Keep in mind
that antique pieces that are chemically washed are on
the market , not to mention the different other "treatments"
( one of it you know well, Jerry Raack, as far as I know).
May be it would be better to separate these two goals.
But see: we have not Microsoft power on this market and
what we can do here is not much more than to report, focus
on certain aspects, start a discussion and, at best, include
even those people that hoped for many years to stop any
talks about these topics.
To give an idea of what is possible today some reader
may read again the above mentioned archived salon discussion,
critically as there is a lot of in-between-the-line
material.
Greetings,
Michael
PS. Filiberto, I agree on your summary. According to our
"system" it would be something between B and C - but this
makes clear anyway that our grading idea has not the slightest
contact to aesthetical judgements.
11-06-2002 08:16 PM
Jerry Raack
Member
Location: Pataskala, Ohio (near Columbus)
Posts: 13
Very interesting grading system. I'm not sure what the
goal of it is. But that not withstanding, I'd bet the
number of really antique pieces that are "A" pieces is very
very very small -- maybe less that 1/10th of 1% would be my
guess. After all, that would imply that knowledge of who wove
it is needed. Maybe there are zero of these pieces around
as I understand the grading system.
"B" must mean that educated personnel can determine what
area a piece originated from, and at some approximate
time (maybe within a quarter of a century?). There are
likely many of these pieces around. Maybe 90% or so of
what we see?
"C" must mean that they have some work done that is not
easily detectable, if at all. Maybe there are quite a
few of these as well, but I'd guess not more than 10%
are restored so well that they can not be detected.
By the way, if your referring to the "Anatolian Antique"
piece I displayed at the last ACOR that was a fake, yes,
it was very well done, albeit with a not-too-believable
field design. But technically the work was very good.
Many thanks,
Jerry Raack
Pataskala, Ohio
11-07-2002 01:37 AM
Michael Bischof
Member
Location:
Posts: 42
yes and no: on the normal mainstream market the number
of A-pieces is extreme minute. For this market they are
not important anyway - it is a home textiles market that
often
figures for strange reasons as "textile art" or "collectors"
market. A general problem of our Western civilization:
we need good looking envelopes, might the content fit
to its name or not.
For the specialist market things are different. At the
beginning of our thoughs of grading were two events:
- since the Iron Curtain fell down Turkish dealers rushed
to Azerbaidschan and to the other Central Asian republics
and it did not take long that even private people from
Caucasia smuggled their textiles to Turkey.
- at about 1991 we got inquiries for natural dyes on Suzanis
like "can it be that natural dyes run ?" - Antique Suzanis
from these places had been imported to Istanbul
and then "improved" there. After the purchase some customers
washed them again in Europe and some colours ran. Looking
close to the subject we found out that people
had done chemical wash ( one step is a very high pH-bath
of hypochlorite) and not even removed the alkali properly
after the treatment. As natural dyes on silk are less
"hard" than on wool even some drops of distilled water
may then cause a kind of "micro-run". This is what had
happened. But the real content of the story was: some
people
had started to do chemical wash on antique pieces, a real
innovation at that time. It kills the piece, of course,
but it is not that easy to detect it.
- after 1992 we constantly saw antique pieces that we
had seen in their "untouched" condition in Anatolia being
sold, including auctions houses ( pieces published in
catalogues), but in a chemical washed status.
- 1992 we got a request from an auction house. A spectacular
"yastik" ( wrong size for a yastik, though) was questioned
by some people, including Eberhart Herrmann.
I had a close look: it was a fake indeed. Independantly
from my own results I asked my Turkish partners and we
found out even "whose dunnit". Both intelligences the
owners of the auction house did not like to hear. The
piece was sold to an antique dealer residing south of
Stuttgart .... but then we realized that this "movement"
had just
started. Your piece, Jerry Raack, is one of those - and
I must admit, as we had written in a previous salon, it
is an ingenious, innovative work of its own. But it was
the
beginning. Later the movement grew and found new goals
... and here ends my intention to talk about this matter
in the public.
Whatever, this was one impulse for us to think about "grading".
The second impulse was total different. Remember please
the hot "mother-goddess" discussions end of the eighties.
There was the claim that all carpet and kilim designs
were in reality genuine Anatolian "inventions" and that
the Turkic people later just copied the still existing
splendid traditions ( that had survived for at least 7000
years in Anatolia). To witness this "theory" the names
of places were given where, as was claimed, because of
their extreme remote position this tradition had survived
and was never spoilt by later newcomers. The people of
those places were named "yerli" ( from yer=place ). Pre-Turkic
Anatolian aborigines, more or less.
Therefore it was necessary to have a close look to these
places - plus it was important to know exactly
from which place a certain textile ( kilim, village rug)
came.
Otherwise this textile would witness nothing. And, at
the end, the thought came up: if one does not know for which
purpose a certain textile was made for it is nearly impossible
to determine whether the textile is a successful, good
solution or a mishappened, bad one - if one respects the
own authentic frame of the culture that produced it
as the first and primary level of evaluation. That means:
if one is interested in textile art. For home textiles
it does not matter anyway.
Because this "theory" was, at the same time, the dream
marketing idea for Western dealers of such things quite
some people, including us, were extreme sceptical and
some even said that this is a construct of people who know
it better. If it would be true "Oriental" carpets are part of
"our" culture, not of "theirs" - and for the initiated
connoisseur
the concept of them is 7000 years old, not "only" medieval...
As a matter of fact in this special market A-pieces are
there and not even that exotic rare. The first time where
a bigger number of A-kilims were on exhibit was the mentioned
exhibition of early kilims in Essen. In the Morehouse
book about yastiks certain pieces from the leading yastik
collection outside of the USA are A-pieces
( this collection was completed before 1990 so there are
no headaches concerning final treatment of those yastiks
), we gave quite some A-pieces to dealers and still
own some. So this is nothing impossible - if one takes
care of that. Attention: this idea of an "A-piece" does
not contain the idiotic naive idea that the real place
of origin
of a piece must be disclosed to the collector who buys
the piece at the end, so that he can run on his own to
that place and get more material cheaper ... this is from
what the involved dealers and pickers would be afraid
of.
Greetings,
11-07-2002 10:20 AM
Filiberto Boncompagni
Administrator
Location: Amman, Jordan
Posts: 23
If "B" applies to pieces found in situ it cannot
be the 90% of the pieces around.
On the other hand THAT should be right proportion for
"C" grade, instead, i.e. the pieces obtained from the
trade.
Generally from the trade one cannot obtain much information
about the "pedigree" of the pieces sold, either because
the seller doesn't know it or because he is not willing
to communicate it to the buyer. (I'm speaking about serious
dealers, not of those misleading the customers with more
attractive attributions.)
Most of pieces shown on Turkotek are of "C" grade, whatever
that means in terms of aesthetic and collectable.
Regards,
Filiberto
11-14-2002 09:43 AM
Richard Farber
Member
Location: Tel Aviv
Posts: 13
sorry to be pedantic but . . . many of the misunderstandings
about the grading system of Mr. B and partners have developed
can be clarifed by the use of the word "provenace ".
Provenance grade A
Provenance grade B
Provenance grade C
Than we all will realize that the system developed is
not an aesthetic valuation-gradation but one which is
important in and of itself.
Mit freundliche Gr٤en,
Richard Farber
11-14-2002 05:03 PM
Vincent Keers
Member
Location: Utrecht
Posts: 15
Sind Sie freundlich mit meiner Gretchen?
Was soll das!
If you'd only posted this two weeks ago, then tutti discussion
would have been gone. Or, maybe it would have become a
discussion.
Aber, Gretchen ist sehr hübsch. Das ist sicher.
Provenance grade A? C?
Na...Provenance grade AAA
Best regards,
Vincent
11-15-2002 12:22 AM
Richard Farber
Member
Location: Tel Aviv
Posts: 13
actualy i did post about this a week or two ago and nobody
got the point
met harteliijke groeten,
r
this forum allows no discussion of money
my wife allows no discussion of gretchens
11-15-2002 04:50 AM
Filiberto Boncompagni
Administrator
Location: Amman, Jordan
Posts: 23
First: what or who is Gretchen?
Second, Richard - it is not so simple:
Michael wrote at the end of his Salon: "without knowing
the real place of origin it seems impossible to get hold
of the potential primary intention of the artist and therefore
one cannot find any substantial basis for evaluating this
kind of textile art."
Then in the thread "grading antique pieces" Michael declared
"Of course grading has nothing to
do with aesthetiques ! We introduced this aspect for two
other reasons" and so on. (26/10)
A week later ,In " What so special about
kilims" (3/11) Michael wrote "Or look, may be, at the
discussion of the Raack early "Fachralo" fragment where the
non-existing identification makes all interpretations weak
( we cannot identify the origin and therefore not the
context in which these kind of rugs were once made - so
any word about their character, including aesthetic
statements,have no basis)."
By the way, my first reaction to that was: oh well, so
we can close Turkotek and go to collect postage stamps.
It seemed an evident contradiction. Michael appeared to
modify his stance later again but it is still unclear
to me what is his position on "provenance C".
Regards,
Filiberto
11-15-2002 11:44 AM
Steve Price
Administrator
Location:
Posts: 58
I think some of he confusion about the relation between
Michael's grading system and aesthetic considerations
is that there are two sets of aesthetic environments to
consider.
1. Our own. That is, what is your reaction or mine to
the aesthetics of a piece? We don't have to know much,
if anything, about where it came from or how old it is
to put it into this aesthetic context. Most collectors
of tribal and antique textiles find this pretty unsatisfying
all by itself.
2. The aesthetics of the culture in which it was made.
This, obviously, requires knowing when and where it was
made, as well as knowing something about the local aesthetic.
Michael's grading system applies here. The more certain
we can be about the time and place of origin, the more
confidently we can approach the question of the local
aesthetic background. This doesn't demand (to me) that
we stop trying to figure things out when there is no possibility
of reaching a definitive understanding.
Does this help?
Regards,
Steve Price
11-15-2002 12:06 PM
Filiberto Boncompagni
Administrator
Location: Amman, Jordan
Posts: 23
Yes, perhaps that should help.
Thanks,
Filiberto
11-15-2002 01:50 PM
Bob Kent
Member
Location:
Posts: 4how do we
know where something old came from?
11-16-2002 01:41 PM
Steve Price
Administrator
Location:
Posts: 58
Knowing exact origins is difficult and usually impossible,
for the reasons you mention (among others). That's why
so few pieces would fall within Michael's "A Group."
Regards,
Steve Price
11-16-2002 01:49 PM
Registered: Apr 2002 Hi
everybody, Registered: Nov 2002 Hallo
Jerry, Registered: Not Yet Dear
Eva,
Author
Michael Bischof
Member
Location:
Posts: 48
thanks a lot, Steve, for helping to make our intentions
transparent. "The aesthetics of the culture in which it
was made" - this is the goal if we discuss it as textile
art. Our own aesthetic is the main or even only legitimate
approach when we collect for "home decoration".
Museums would try to insist on the first level - and the
fact that collectors/dealers are not able to present checkable
evidence about the foundations of their own standards
leaves them looking ridiculous with professional people
in most cases, kind of ethnocentric idiots ...
which they often enough are. Keep in mind: since 1989
the latest the Caucasus , Turkmenistan etc. were available.
How many leading experts moved to there, to learn from
he source ?
Bob, it does not matter how huge the Ottoman empire was.
Cottage industry type of weaves have been traded even
more far than its boundaries ... but not authentic weaves
( except in their last stadium of decay when they became
valuable home textiles for the Western market and were
produced like cottage industry merchandize).
That such A-grade knowledge is not available is a fairy
tale. On Friday I was at a preview of an auction. I saw
one carpet again. First I met it ( and 3 other similar
pieces, one much better, one weaker) when visiting a picker
in Central Anatolia 4 years before. He knew quite well
were it was from. His mood was high flying so he was sure he
could sell it for quite a high price to a certain Istanbul
dealer. Later I heard from him that he had sold 2 of them to
this guy and the third to another guy, also in Istanbul.
Looking at this piece a collector that I know since many
years came close and asked some questions about this particular
piece that was labeled "Konya" ( 3 hours by car from its
real place of origin). He told me that he had bought a
very similar piece for a price that was astonishing low
so he started a bit to feel suspicious. Without having
seen the picture of his piece ( to which amount it was
repaired) I cannot say anything definitive - but just
the time schedule made its fate clear: it did not perform
good enough in Istanbul and was then channeled to a Turkish
dealer outside of Turkey for a much cheaper price, reflecting
its real performance on the market ( and this must not
mean too much as it is a real village rug, unique enough,
the market for such things still in an embryonic state).
For most of the pieces that are found in situ to
document the provenance would be possible. But that does
not mean, under no circumstances, to publish that in the
newspaper. It is not necessary anyway.
What we propose for "grading" aims at securing a safe
start point for furthe research. If this will be done
nobody knows. It is not
a kind of sorting system according to aesthetical standards
! By no means ! But without proper research we can well
swim for decades in "our own aesthetics" - this textile
art will not be appreciated then like it should be.
In one respect, though, we stressed something which we
find still important: to know the "fate" of such a piece.
Who washed it how,
was repair done, with which methods. This applies to the
integrity of a piece. Any uncertaincy in this respect
will, and must, lower the market value of pieces, unavoidably.
Until now the innovative finishing methods are below the
surface and the professional people just try to silence
discussions about that. They will not succeed. When Jerry
Raack gets a bit frightened about the fact that he cannot
identify a spot in an own piece which was repaired - who
can forbid people to think about the consequences, the
full potential of such innovations ?
Greetings,
11-17-2002 02:32 PM
Eva Hoffmeister
Member
Location: Heidelberg
Posts: 1
My English is not so perfect, but I hope you can follow
me. It is very easy to reconstruct your carpet. Symmetry
of a carpet comes from the center, and once you've got
it, you've got it.
So... around the main field, you have the main border,
but the main border is surrounded by the small borders.
What is missing at your carpet is the outer small border,
blue and brown and a sequence of red and white knots.
Turn your piece up side down and study it from the back.
Greetings,
Eva
11-19-2002 10:34 PM
Sue Zimmerman
Guest
Location:
Posts: N/A
At last! Perfect! I get it! Thanks! Sue
11-19-2002 11:33 PM
Pages (2): 1
[2]