ISSUE 124 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002
CONTENTS
11 EDITORIAL
From Oxford to Washington to Canberra museum textile collections are growing.
13 |LETTERS
Too dense to readFeltTents?; Persian poetics in a Pakistan-made rug; a touch too preachy; more on Indian metal-work embroidery; nihilism in a Beshir rug.
15 NEWS
In memory of textile giant Antonio Ratti; Bonhams expands; Jim Horrocks of Ainsworths retires; dye conferences in exotic and not-so-exotic places; major Indonesian textile acquisition for Canberra; Baku beckons.
19 |FRAGMENTS
Time to wear your heart on your sleeve; Goya's tapestry cartoons for Charles III; saleroom shudders for the anti-fur campaigners at Sotheby's.
23 |SPECIAL REPORT
Charllotte Kwon visits villagers of the Kutch Desert in Gujarat. India to discover how the export market has influenced their embroidery traditions.
41 |PREVIEW
Exhibitions; Fresh agendas in kilim collecting at the Deutsches Textilmuseum. Krefeld; triple whammy of nomads, Genghis Khan and the Silk Road at the Met, New York; The Textile Gallery's Kangxi carpets in New York and London: splendid collisions of East andWest at the Bavarian National Museum, Munich. Plus: Larnba in London with Francesca Galloway; insights into Amazonia in Stuttgart; Jenny BalfourPaul’s unusual wardrobe at the institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies, Exeter; The Asia Society, New York makes dynamic arrangements; sofrehs and kilims of many faces at Espace Chevalier; Caucasians with Richard Purdon; sacred Indonesian textiles at the Tai Gallery; birthday celebrations at Galerie Triff. Auctions; The European Autumn sales.
53 |CALENDAR
Aworldwide listing of auctions, exhibitions, fairs and conferences.
57 |ISLAMIC ART
Anticipating the autumn sales; new appointments; the Metropolitan Museum mounts the first ever exhibition of the art of the Ilkhanids; Alan Caiger-Smith looks at shape in Islamic ceramics.
69 BOOKS
Marie-Louise Nabholz-Kartaschoff on Rosemary Crill's Indian Embroidery; Ulrich Tiirck looks at Heinz Meyer's Textile Kunst; Jack Haldane on Parviz Tanavoli’s Rustic and Tribal Weaves from Varamin.
87 |FORUM
Radiocarbon testing of Turkmen rugs has proven invaluable in dating pre1700 pieces. But, Peter Hoffmeister argues, it has little authority beyond these parameters.
88 PANTHER SKINS &
LOAVES OF BREAD TheTie-DyedClothsofOume Bobbie Sumberg Recent fieldwork in central Cote d'Ivoire showed that globalisation had impacted on traditional weaving in an unexpected way. The tie-dyed cloth used for everyday dress had not disappeared in favour of commercial products. Instead, in an area that has always been passionate about textiles, these cloths have acquired a deeper level of cultural significance.
94 !THE KING RIDES OUT
ASilkFragmentinAugsburg Avinoam Shalem Restoration work at the tomb of Bishop Hartmann in Augsburg in 1934 revealed fragments of a burial chasuble made from early Asian silk textile. Conservators pieced together the fragile cloth to find a dramatic narrative rarely depicted on textiles.
96 |BAKHTIARI
Village andNomadWeavings fromtheChaharMahal Aaron Nejad Amajor exhibition in Stockholm this autumn will add depth of focus to our limited knowledge of the Bakhtiari weavings from the Chahar Mahal. The moving spirit behind it is Peter Willborg, whose research has taken bold steps towards identifying and classifying these underappreciated weavings, which straddle the boundary between cottage industry andworkshop production.
104 |A BALLARD
POSTSCRIPT Tom Hubbard Most of James F. Ballard’s rugs were bequeathed to US museums in 1929. However an invitation to his greatgrandson's home in St Louis proved that Ballard's legacy is still unfolding.
107 |THE HALI GALLERY
Ahouse style advertisement section.
115 jREVIEW
Fairs: Serving the conservative market at Grosvenor House: visitors select their favourite pieces at the fifth HALI fair at Olympia, and reflections on Caucasian 'Masterpieces on the Market'. Exhibitions: Herrmann in Lucerne; a Polish-Persian affair in Cracow andWarsaw. Conferences: 'Colour Congress 2002' in Ames, Iowa: DOBAG meets in western Anatolia.
133 (AUCTION PRICE GUIDE
An Arraiolos at RB, an Axminster at CLO, plus the richest pickings from the spring and summer rug sales.
143 |DESIGN FILE
Post-War British furnishing fabrics at Francesca Galloway: sharp modern design at 1CFF, New York.
155 !NETWORK
Aclassified advertisement section.
161 jPROFILE
Istanbul dealer Mehmet (jietinkaya talks about the past, the present, the future, and the power of colour.
163 (PARTING SHOTS
DOBAG's 20th anniversary party.
164 jLAST PAGE
Harald Bohmer explains how some colours are better than others.
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