It has been a jam

This has been a jam-packed salon with contributions from numerous people.

Danny Mehra generously contributed a number of Luri rugs and gabbehs. Richard Tomlinson started us off with a small Luri flatweave bag of still undetermined use. Steve Price began a discussion of red wefts. Only one example with green wefts was discovered, in a Varamin Luri flatweave. Michael Wendorf suggested Hali 1/1 as a reference to Mike Tschebull’s article on Luri weavings. We will probably have to sell a few rugs to finance a copy! Daniel Deschuyteneer showed a beautiful bag with an unusual pile bridge and some interesting structural features.

A study of the Luri Rosette shifted to a discussion of Varamin bag faces, with Tracy Davis luring us into that tangent with a rosette from one of her Varamin weavings. John Collins pointed out that full Varamin mafrash do exist, with only the one face in pile. John Howe showed a lovely salt bag that could be either Lur or Bakhtiyari.

A couple of threads about gabbehs brought us a dozen with various provenances. None were conclusively Varamin gabbehs, leading one to suspect that this type of weaving may not have been woven there. Leslie Orgel showed us a “chromosome panel” that turned out to be part of a Kurdish box cover.

A thread beginning with a tightly woven chanteh evolved into a lively discussion of the “almond” or floral meander border, with Vincent Keers contributing a remarkable exposition of the geometry of this border type and Michael Wendorf providing examples of Kurdish use of this border type. Tracy Davis showed a spectacular Luri rug example with this border and medallions familiar from the ubiquitous Luri bag faces.

A small chanteh was shown to most likely be of Varamin Luri provenance. Vincent Keers brought us a curious bag face with unusual animals that John Collins tied to a Varamin khorjin.
Finally, Danny Mehra brought a lovely long rug with what is a commonly used Kurdish field design that John Collins helped to firmly attribute to the Luri tradition.

The most interesting result of this salon has been that we will be able to better identify Luri weavings because they seem to be everywhere now that we know what to look for.

Patrick Weiler