CONTENTS ISSUE 156 SUMMER 2008
37 AN AFGHAN FELT MANTLE
60THE BENAKI MUSEUM IN DETAIL
FRONTLINES
LETTERS Expanding on the elements of a textile fragment in the Hermitage Museum, and a plea
for coverage in HALI of the ins-and-outs of LACMA’s ‘Bellini’ carpet acquisition 25 NEWS The Doris Duke Central Persian ‘proto-Polonaise’ silk rug which sold for $4.5 million at
Christie’s in New York; a farewell to the late Charles Lave; Turkmentreffen 2008
27
ENEWS A summary of the best on www.hali.com and the rest of the web
29
BENCHMARKS In which ‘experts’ identify key attributes of good rugs and textiles 37 PROFILE John Carswell interviews Edmund de Unger, the renowned Hungarian-born collector of
Islamic art in general and classical oriental rugs in particular, at his home in Surrey 44 MASTERPIECE A 9th century Abbasid lustreware tile fragment from Iraq, in the collection
of the Islamic Art Museum in Berlin, presented by former Deputy Director Jens Krööger
52
FEATURES
QIZILBASH FROM KHORASAN?
A Turkmen multiple-gööl main carpet from the George and Marie Hecksher Collection
54
PETER POULLADA
An exploration by the author into the origins of this carpet, which appears in the exhibition ‘For Tent
and Trade: Masterpieces of Turkmen Weaving’ at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, within the
complex of tribes in and around northern Khorasan in the 18th and 19th centuries
THE BENAKI MUSEUM OF ISLAMIC ART
The Collections of the Islamic Art Museum in Athens
ANGELOS DELIVORRIAS, ANNA BALLIAN, MINA MORAITOU, MARIA SARDI, JULIA THEOLOGOU,
60
ANASTASIA OZOLINE, YANNIS SARTZETAKIS & JOHN CARSWELL
A wide-ranging curatorial overview of the Museum’s collections of Islamic textiles, early
carpet fragments, woodwork, metalwork and ceramics, most of which were acquired in the early
years of the 20th century by Alexandrine Greek collector and connoisseur Anthony Benaki and are
now housed in a recently opened building in Kerameikos
RADIANCE FROM THE RAINFOREST
84
HEIDI KING
Examining a selection from among more than seventy Pre-Columbian featherworks, some published
here for the first time, currently on view in a special loan display curated by the author in the new AOA
galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York
FIRST AMONG EQUALS
90
ANTHONY HAZLEDINE
A first-hand exploration into the life and passions of the pioneering Turkish surgeon Dr AyanGüülgöönen,
who has amassed an impressive collection of Anatolian kilims and pileweaves
112SPECTACULAR PARACAS IN PARIS
CONTEXT
EXHIBITIONS The Hajji Baba Club’s public exhibition ‘Timbuktu to Tibet’, which marks the Club’s
75th anniversary, at the New-York Historical Society, and the celebratory brunch and kilim spectacular
held by Marilyn and Marshall Wolf at the Nazmiyal Gallery; Moroccan textiles at the Cavin-Morris
Gallery in New York; a diverse array of bags and containers from across the Islamic world at the
Minasian Rug Company in Evanston, Illinois; early Paracas mantles from Peruvian public collections
at the Muséée du Quai Branly in Paris 106 CALENDAR Auctions, exhibitions, fairs and conferences worldwide 124 AUCTION PRICE GUIDE Recent sales in London and Massachusetts 129 BOOKS Margaret Young Sanchez reviews Lena Bjerregaard’s Chachapoya Textiles: The Laguna
de Los Cóóndores Textiles in the Museo Leymebamba, Chachapoyas, Peru;Jenny Balfour-Paul
welcomes the English edition ofDominique Cardon’s Natural Dyes: Sources, Tradition, Technology
and Science; Jens Krööger interprets Werner Brüüggemann’s Der Orientteppich: Einblicke In Seine
Geschichte Und ÄÄsthetik
141
PARTING SHOTS London to Lower Saxony via San Francisco and New York
150
FIRST VIEW A splendid early 19th century Uzbek suzani embroidery from the Burrell Collection in
Glasgow, currently on display in ‘Colours of the Silk Road: Suzani Embroideries from Uzbekistan’ 152
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