ISSUE 117 JULY/AUGUST 2001

CONTENTS

9 ]EDITORIAL

The fourth HATI l air at London’s Olympia; HALI.com goes online; the inaugural Beattie lecture at the Ashmolean; homage to David Sylvester.

13 |LETTERS

Hand-tied or machine-tied, it’s hard to call says Jennifer Wearden; a hooked rug w ith a Mughal theme; some old truisms just won't lie down and die; spare a thought for Mr Wm Thomson.

15 |NEWS

World record price for a Coptic looppile fragment in New York; Syrian textile society launched; ply splitters convention for September; rug robbery: moves and openings; remembering Allen Lurie.

17 |FRAGMENTS

An encased portrait proves a winning combination; life imitates art in a royal carpet garden; Kraton courtiers wear batik in Copenhagen.

19 |SPECIAL REPORT

There’s a first time for everything and Roman Weil captures that special moment o f self-abandonment as he raises a tentative hand in the RB rooms in Wiesbaden. Has he made a good choice, will he be successful? Read on...

41 |PREVI EW

Central Asian pile bags at the Washington Textile Museum in an exhibition dedicated to George O 'Bannon: unseen Ballard and other rugs on show at St Louis Missouri; carpets and kilims from private collections at Graz in Austria, a city with a strong association with the East: Gallery Smend's Indonesian batiks on the road; Safavid Persian weaving at the Boston Museum o f Pine Art. Time to commit to the second Moroccan 1COC in September - we preview the main events including exhibitions, academic sessions and the pre-conference tour o f Morocco’s royal cities.

53 j CALEN DAR

A worldwide listing o f auctions, exhibitions, fairs and conferences.

57 |ISLAMIC ART

Results and comment on recent sales in London, Paris and New York: a conference on Mughal jewellery at the British Museum; Mughal coins and portraits; a loan exhibition from the Tarec] Rajab travels to Hungary: new Asian and Islamic courses in London; SOAS works on a big idea.

82 |OUTBACK AFSHARS

Thomas Cole Coarsely woven and intensely coloured, this group o f south Persian tribal rugs combines certain Afshar structural characteristics with what may be early forms o f Afshar designs.

87 |TH E HALI GALLERY

A house style advertisement section.

61 |BOOKS

Walter Denny reviews Oriental Carpet and Textile Studies V Part I, edited by Robert Pinner and Murray Eiland Jr: Simon Garfield’s Mauve reviewed by Philippa Scott; Edward Gibbs on Islamic Taper, A Study o f the Ancient Craft: Rebecca Scott on Clare Browne and Jennifer Wearden's Samplers from the Victoria and Albert Museum.

70 |F0 RUM

Two embroidered Indian qanat panels were offered at auction in spring 2000, both catalogued as ca. 1800. One sold well, while experts considered the other controversial and it was withdrawn. Steven Cohen takes up the issue o f dating late Mughal needlework.

72IPONCHOS FROM

ECUADOR Forrest D. Colburn Like so many ethnic textile traditions, the striped ponchos worn by generations o f Ecuadorian men began to lose quality and meaning during the 20th century. With very few early examples preserved, the tradition is on the verge o f disappearing. The author draws on extensive field research to focus on these elegant, mainly ikat-dyed textiles.

99 j REVIEW

Exhibitions; Anatolian kilims, steel sculptures and Bauhaus design form an alliance o f opposites in Essen; a sym phony o f batiks at Amsterdam's KIT; embroidery highlights from the Philadelphia Museum o f Art; also, Navajo blankets at Arizona’s Heard Museum, textiles from the Taklanrakan at the Abegg; Paris’s reborn Guimet Museum; silk design in Como. Fairs: a round up o f New York spring and early summer Asian art and tribal fairs; a first ever 'rug bazaar' in Tucson, Arizona.

113 |AUCTION PRICE GUIDE

An autumn sales season where classical carpet fragments and North African textiles top the poll.

121 IDESIGN FILE

Le Brocquy tapestries at Agnews; Samarkand broadens its remit; Veedon Fleece at the cutting edge; Japanese design award; the harsh face o f carpet weaving in Pakistan.

133 |NETWORK

A classified advertisement section.

141 j PROFI LE

78 j SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE

Ply-Split Braiding in Northwest India Peter Collingwood One o f the most basic o f all textile structures, ply-split braiding was identified only recently, used mainly for everyday items such as the camel girths discussed here. Hew old examples survive, but the author’s painstaking research has enabled him to identify and categorise a number o f variants in technique and design.

Christie's carpet and Islamic art helmsman William Robinson talks to Philippa Scott.

142 |PARTING SHOTS

Mainly Tucson and New York.

144 |LAST PAG E

Amy de la Haye writes on Thea Porter, whose unique flair as a designer brought the richness, colour and relaxed elegance o f Eastern dress to a whole generation o f Westerners.

11 A I I 117 | 5