CONTEXT AUCTION PRICE GUIDE

This is a superbly-coloured

‘Mejideh’ prayer rug in which the juxtaposition of its typically

sombre but saturated colours works especially well. It was

purchased by the late M. Allen Swift from SNY on 30 May 1987

(lot 70) for $11,000. The price it fetched here along with lots 81

and 82 in the Blau sale ($24,000 and $9,600) and the $12,000

paid for another Swift rug (lot 194) as well as the $9,600and

$13,200 for lots 95 and 213 in this sale, suggest a revivalof

interest in good Melas pieces. There are a number of apt com

parisons, including: Mesciulam Leone,Tappeti e Kilim Anatolici

dal 600 al 900, pl.18; HALI 31, inside front cover; SLO, 29 July

1987, lot 76 and 12 October 1988, lot 452; Lefevre 2 November

1973, lot 2; RB, 12 November 1994, lot 25; HALI 5/2, p.124; SNY,

14 December 2001, lot 38 and Brunk, 31 May 2003, lot 63. See

HALI 149, p.106 for discussion of a related rug at RB on 20 May

2006, lot 74.

BEZALEL CARPET (DETAIL) EARLY 20TH CENTURY 2.16 x3.68M (7'1'' x12'1'')

CHRISTIE'S NEW YORK 12 DECEMBER 2006,LOT 34

EST:$10-15,000 SOLD FOR:$10,800

CNY have a good record selling Jerusalem Arts & Crafts carpets.

This handsome example is inscribed ‘Yerushalayem Bezalel’ top

and bottom. The ogival flower, leaf and palmette lattice is very

‘oriental’ in form and content, in the manner of the carpets crea

ted by William Morris and other designers of the English Arts &

Crafts Movement. The following lot in the CNY sale, a more rec

ognisably Bezalel creation, with a bold Art Nouveau menorah and

Stars of David on a blue doublearched field, fetched $4,560, well

above estimate. See Anton Felton, Jewish Carpets, pp.94-5.

● CAUCASUS

AZERBAIJAN EMBROIDERY 18TH CENTURY

1.04 X 1.17M (3'5'' X 3'10'') SOTHEBY'S NEW YORK

14 DECEMBER 2006, LOT 217

EST:$20-30,000 SOLD FOR:$24,000

The field represents a section of an infinite repeat of red

stars and octagons linked by blue lozenges, with a star and

cartouche border overlaid, a concept found on many Islamic

carpets andtextiles. At the Washington ICOC in 1980,

Christine Klose drew attention

to the influence of Islamic tile patterns on south Caucasian

embroideries and the consequent effect on rugdesign (HALI 4/4, p.349, figs. 12, 13; p.351, pl.IV). The SNY panel comprises two

joined pieces of fabric, the seam slightly off-centre. It is worked in surfacedarning on the diagonal, unusual for dark-ground

embroideries, occurring more often on pastel pieces, but the Victoria and Albert Museum in London has a superb example,

which also is embroidered with a tile pattern (HALI 59, p.109, fig.13). Jennifer Wearden suggests that the technique may have

reached Azerbaijan with Persian craftsmen in the 18th century. She proposes that professionally-made darned embroideries

might in fact be made in the middle of 18th century when silk was scarceas their manufacture consumed less than cross-stitch

pieces, which she dates slightly earlier. Theprovenance of this lot is given in the catalogue as “Hugh Moss Textile Gallery,

London 1975”, which means thatit was acquired at an early point in the renaissance of academic interest in carpets and textiles

that we have witnesed over the past three decades. If it hasn’t changed hands since 1975, the return on the initial investment

would be substantial.

KUBA SHIELD CARPET CIRCA 1800 1.60 x2.69M (5'3'' x8'10'')

SOTHEBY'S NEW YORK, VOJTECH BLAU SALE

14 DECEMBER 2006,LOT 98 EST:$100-105,000

SOLD FOR:$108,000 Members of the ‘Shield’ group

of later classical Caucasian carpets defined and catalogued

by Robert Pinner and Michael Franses in HALI 1/1 (1978) are

not commonly sold at auction. The silk-foundation Blau rug

(P&F no. 8) represents their tenth

appearance in our records since the mid-1980s, but involving

just five rugs, and a wide range of beauty, age and condition.

The most expensive was the Godman variant design rug,

the smallest of the group (P&F 21), which was bought by Peter

Bausback at CLO in July 1984 for £9,180, before being stolen,

eventually recovered, and resold for $195,000 at SNY in Decem

ber 1999(HALI 109, p.153). The ex-Webb Hill composite rug,

made up of silk-foundation fragments of at leasttwo old

and beautiful Shield carpets, fetched $44,000 at SNY in April

1992 (HALI 63, p.133). Another, of the somewhat later type, was

bought by a Swiss collector at SLO in October 1985for £14,300

($20,160), resold for DM76,000 at RB in November 1997, and

again at SNY in April 1999 for $34,500 (HALI 105, p.140). Then

there is the well known but heavily rewoven Historic Deerfield

rug (P&F 17), bought at the AAA, New York, in 1914, deaccessioned

in February 1992 at Skinner for $7,700 (HALI 62, p.134), and

resold at CLO in October 1996 for $12,720 (HALI 90, p.123). It

was then unsold at CLO in May 2003, and again in October 2006

against a $7,000-10,000 estimate. The Blau rug is in better condit

ion than the two previously cited examples with curled-leaf

borders, but it suffered by having a mechanical-looking

linked-octagon tracery border.

probably made in Shusa in the

Karabagh region. In remarkably good condition and colour it

has a highly stylised, rather cramped angular palmette and

sickle leaf design mirror-imaged around the central vertical axis,

adapted from an earlier more curvilinear Safavid Persian pro

totype. While not often seen, carpets with this design variant

are not exactly rare. Among the comparisons cited by SNY are

the 18th century Karagagh region Benguiat palmette and

sickle leaf carpet in the Kirchheim Collection (Orient Stars,

pl.74) and the very similar Shusha carpet in the Washington

Textile Museum (R.36.2.1, Ellis, Early Caucasian Rugs,pl.18).

However, both of these carpets are broader in relation to their

length than the present lot, allowing the palmette motifs a

rounder, less attenuated profile. Ellis cites a number of com

parisons to the TM rug, mostly then (1975) in private collect

ions, while in Orient Stars (pp.365-366), Michael Franses,

lists a great many more for the Benguiat carpet, although the

present lot does appear to have escaped his net back in 1993.

KARABAGH PALMETTE AND SICKLE LEAF CARPET (DETAIL) 18TH CENTURY

2.29 x6.02M (7'6'' x19'9'') SOTHEBY'S NEW YORK

14 DECEMBER 2006,LOT 306 EST:$40-60,000

SOLD FOR:$72,000 Consigned from a private col

lection in Madrid, this complete early Caucasian carpet was

CAUCASIAN KELLEH (DETAIL) SECOND HALF 19TH CENTURY 1.09 x3.48M (3'7'' x11'5'')

SOTHEBY'S NEW YORK 14 DECEMBER 2006,LOT 183

EST:$15-20,000 SOLD FOR:$36,000

This attractive kelleh was tentatively attributed to Karabagh

in the Basel Gewerbemuseum’s 1980 publication Alte Teppiche

aus dem Orient(pp.62/63), when it was in the Rudolf Graf Collec

tion. It incorporates a number of familiar motifs seldom found

together in a single rug. The dominant motif, here repeated

three times, is a blue octofoil star-like medallion, like that on

a related kelleh in the Burns Collection (The Caucasus.Traditions

162HALI ISSUE 151
CONTEXT AUCTION PRICE GUIDE

in Weaving, pl.4), sold at CLO

on 18 October 2001, lot 276, for $7,666. The motif is an ancient

one; a drawing of which appears in Orendi’s Das Gesamt

wissen uber Antike und Neue Teppiche des Orients, Vienna

1930, p.39, fig.300, described as a “cartouche medallion, Persia,

circa 1480”. The four yellow flaming palmettes are identical in

design to those on a 18th/19th century Karabagh with twenty

such palmettes, in Ellis's Early Caucasian Rugs, pl.30. The three

rayed roundels are ubiquitous and appear in a number of east

and south Caucasian rugs, such as Herrmann, SOT V, no.20;

SNY, 19 September 2003, lot 77; Schürmann, Caucasian Rugs,

no.109; Hopf, Tapis d'Orient, pp.44/5, attributed to Joshegan;

and SNY, 27 April 2000, lot 78, $23,750 (= Atlantic Collections,

no.74) . The border is fairly typical -– identical borders appear

on an ex-Bernheimer Karabagh at SNY, 16 December 2005, lot

14 (HALI 145, p.117), and Herrmann, SOT III, pl.29.

KUBA LONG RUG LATE 19TH CENTURY

1.35 x2.39M (4'5'' x7'10'') SOTHEBY'S NEW YORK,

VOJTECH BLAU SALE 14 DECEMBER 2006,LOT 37

EST:$10-15,000 SOLD FOR:$60,000

The high price fetched by this ex- Frank Michaelian rug is a

reflection of its rarity, which appeared in the TM’s Hajji Baba

Club exhibition in 1960. With the exception of some Zeikhurs,

it is rare for a ‘Europeanised’ floral-design carpet to originate

from the northeast Caucasus. According Bennett & Bassoul

(Rugs of the Caucasus, pl.34, a floral Karabagh) most rugs with

the gul farangi(French flower)

design were woven in Karabagh. In Azadi et.al.,Azerbaijani-Cauc

asian Rugs, the caption to pl.223, a Shusha district Karabagh,

traces the possible origin of the quatrefoil floral bouquets to the

importation into Azerbaijan in the late 19th-early 20th cent

uries, of Russian velvets, which may have served as models for

some elements of these designs. The black ground seen

here is, according to Bennett, “a shade highly regarded in

Persia and is called surmey”.

Traditions in Weaving, pl.7, and

Herrmann,SOT IX, no.37, 1987 retail DM42,500. In 1994 two

related very fine prayer rugs were with Maury Bynum in

Chicago, one dated 1270 (1854) with cotton warps and silk wefts,

the other dated 1259 (1840) on an all-silk foundation.

MARASALI SHIRVAN

PRAYER RUG LATE 19TH CENTURY 1.02 x1.27M (3'4'' x4'2'')

SOTHEBY'S NEW YORK, VOJTECH BLAU SALE

14 DECEMBER 2007,LOT 39 EST:$25-35,000

SOLD FOR:$90,000 Vojtech Blau was an active bid

der at the Andrew Dole dispersal sale at Robert C. Eldred of

East Dennis, Massachusetts in June 1976. This rug, on a silk

foundation, was lot 38, miscatalogued as Sehna, and sold for

$16,000 (the Dole Collection was sold without reserve in

four parts on 13 August 1970; 19 August 1971; 24 June 1976 and

13 July 1978). Describing a similar rug from the Jim Dixon Col

lection (Caucasian Prayer Rugs, pl.94, Ralph Kaffel states, in part,

“[these rugs] belong to small, elite family of very finely woven

lattice-pattern rugs, usually attributed to Marasali. Rugs in this

group feature rows of flowers arranged in sequence to form a

‘V’ pattern. The depiction of some of these flowers is unusually

naturalistic, and red silk is often used in the pile. Yellow is used

in greater proportion than in similar white-ground lattice

pieces.” Other close comparisons are hard to find, but inc

lude SNY, 31 May 1986, lot 7, $13,500 = Burns, The Caucasus.

EAST CAUCASIAN PRAYER RUG DATED 1313 AH (1895 AD)

1.04 x1.37M (3'5'' x4'6'') SOTHEBY'S NEW YORK,

VOJTECH BLAU SALE 14 DECEMBER 2006,LOT 94

EST:$10-15,000 SOLD FOR:$30,000

A number of east Caucasian prayer rugs with broad vertical

bands containing botehs and floral motifs feature the Mara

sali-style ‘bunches of grapes’ design in the borders and /or

the prayer arch. Most are attributed to Daghestan. The earlier

examples tend to be rather long – plate 44 in Herrmann's SOT II,

dated to circa 1800 (1979 retail DM50,000) is 0.94 x 1.73m (3'1"

x 5'8"), while SNY, 4 December 1988, lot 88, from the Harold

Zulalian Collection ($18,700), is 0.81 x 1.80m (2'8" by 5'11"). The

median size, based on nine published examples (present lot

excluded) is 0.97 x 1.65 (3'2" by 5'5"). The Blau rug, catalogued

as Shirvan, is among the smallest in the group. Of a nice size

and with an impressive provenance: ex-Frank Michaelian Col

lection, it was exhibited at the TM in 1960, in the ‘Town and

Tribal Carpets’ show in Boston in 1984 (catalogue fig.II), and at

the L.A.Mayer Institute in Jerusalem in 1986 (Hasson, pl.24).

All that is to its credit. To its detriment is the quality of the

wool, which is dry and lifeless, and the possible alteration of

its inwoven dates. Nevertheless, totally in keeping with the

momentum of this sale, it set an auction record for its type.

EAST CAUCASIAN CARPET 18TH CENTURY

1.55 x2.92M (5'1'' x9'7'') SOTHEBY'S NEW YORK,

VOJTECH BLAU SALE 14 DECEMBER 2006,LOT 86

EST:$20-30,000 SOLD FOR:$114,000

Unquestionably a rare and early east Caucasian rug, but heavily

restored and repaired, while the field is more yellow than the

ivory shade in the catalogue suggests. The ‘ram’s horn’

devices, often associated with 19th century Perepedil rugs,

evolved from blossom figures,

and the closer they are in their execution to curvilinear blossoms,

the earlier the rug (see Christine Klose, ‘The Perepedil Enigma’, HALI 55, 1991, pp.110-117). Those in the present rug are

comparable to Klose’s drawing 5g on p.113, an early version of the motif. This lot is most like another 18th century piece

published in Adil Besim's Mythos &Mystik 2, 1999, pl.11, with which it shares many design elements including rhomboid

cartouches (here along the sides and in the corners in the Besim rug) and, most importantly, in the stylised large scale ‘S’ borders

on dark grounds. Based on fluidity of drawing, the Besim rug may be somewhat earlier. Other related examples are in the

Burns Collection in Seattle (The Caucasus-Traditions in Weaving, pl.20), which Klose dated to the early 19th century (p.114, fig.8,

and page 115), and an early white-ground rug belonging to a northern California collector, of which a detail appeared on the

cover of San Francisco dealer James Blackmon's promotional brochure in the late 1990s. Coincidentally, lot 216 in the afternoon

session of the SLO sale, a fragment of an early dark-ground Perepedil rug, comparable to Klose, p.113, fig.7, sold for a

reasonable price of $16,800.

For more auction results see www.hali.com/apg.aspx

HALI ISSUE 151163