HALIThe International Magazine o f Antique Carpet and Textile Art
Editor Daniel Shaffer Deputy Editor Jill Tilden Assistant Editors Ben Evans, Abigail McCullough Editorial Assistant Sania Rahman Consultant Editors Michael Franses, Robert Pinner Contributing Editors Julia Bailey, Alberto Boralevi John Carswell, Steven Cohen Thomas Cole, Rosemary Crill Susan Day, Donald Dinwiddie Murray Eiland Jr, Herbert Exner Anthony Hazledine, Rina Indictor Ralph Kaffel, Alan Kennedy DeWitt Mallary, John Mills Vanessa Moraga, Thomas Murray Penny Oakley, Carlo Maria Suriano Wendel Swan, Parviz Tanavoli John Wertime
Art Director Liz Dixon Art Editor Sam Paton
Publisher Sebastian Ghandchi
Advertisement Manager Ralph Emmerson Advertisement Executives Rosario Canade, Jasmine Cherkaoui Advertisement Co-ordinator Angharad Britton
Circulation Marketing Manager Alison Ronald Circulation Marketing Assistant Fiona Hall
To subscribe to HALI, please contact our Subscriptions Department on: Telephone +44 (0) 1 858 4 3 8 818 Fax +44 (0) 1858 4 6 8 9 69
SUBSCRIPTIONS ADDRESS HALI Subscriptions Department Hali Publications Limited Tower House, Sovereign Park Lathkill Street, Market Harborough Leicestershire LEI6 9EF, UK
For Book and Back Issue orders please contact Veronica Purdey on: Telephone +44 (0) 171 9 7 0 4 5 6 4
HALI PUBLICATIONS LIMITED St Giles House, 5 0 Poland Street London W1V4AX, UK Telephone +44 (0) 171 9 7 0 4 6 0 0 Editorial answerphone +44 (0) 171 9 7 0 4841 Main fax +44 (0) 171 9 7 0 4 8 9 7 Advertising fax +44 (0) 171 9 7 0 4 8 9 6 E-mail hali@centaur.co.uk
For courier and hand deliveries only, HALI is located at: 1&2 Berners Street London W1P 3AG, UK
A Member o f the Centaur Communications Limited Group
HALI 103
Issue 103
THE COVER Marasali prayer rug, east Caucasus, late 18th or early 19th century. 0.89 x 1.14m (2'11" x 3'9"). The magnificent colours and the extreme fineness of its weaving, with 4,450 knots per dm2(287/in2), has made this ‘black’ Marasali one of the most published and admired of all Transcaucasian prayer rugs. Originally acquired in 1937 by Jerome and Mary Jane Straka in Cracow, Poland, it was the favourite piece in the couple’s collection and accordingly the one they were most reluctant to part with. After the death of Jerome Straka in 1986, however, the ‘Straka’ Marasali, as it had become known, was sold at auction by Sotheby’s, New York (HALI 34, p.84). Ralph and Linda Kaffel Collection, California.
69 EDITORIAL
E xciting new horizons open up at the I)e Young Museum in San F rancisco, hut th e Bay a rea rug community also b id s ad ieu to a re cent benefactor, the Turkm en carpet co lle c to r W o lf W iedersperg.
71 LETTERS
T im e to come c le an on Turkm en colour run says Steven P rice; G e rard Boely on a weft-w rapping te chnique on B e rber mats; boiled cam e l h a ir y ields a delightful silky fibre; the New Z ealand connection; are th ese n iches on my palas?
73 ERAGMENTS
An early 17th century Mexican a r tis t p rovides the V irg in with a su itab ly u pm a rk e t bedside rug; dyers salu te the happy morn in G reenw ich; the TCC quits H am p ton Court and m ig ra tes to W in chester.
75 FORUM
W hen is a cushm a not a eushm a ...? a p lea for more p re c ise nam ing of Andean textiles from Joerg H aeberli; during conservation the B ardini Mamluk y ie ld ed up some of its secrets, and perhaps the solution to a mystery, says A lberto Boralevi; Parviz Tanavoli considers the possible lin k s betw een sham ans, B akhtiari bulls and jol-e gave. 81 POSTCARD
Ben Evans finds the old and the new in ex tricab ly m ixed in the in com parable city of Cairo.
82 IVORY BLACK & GOLD
Marasali Prayer Rugs Ralph Kaffel W ith th e i r trie d and tested ‘flam ing’ boteh designs, e legant bu t lively p a le tte and sm all form at, Marasali p rayer rugs are em in ently collectable. The au th o r’s p red ilec tio n for th ese e lite rugs from the Shirvan region of the C aucasus is no secret, and here he in dulges it fully as he investigates the defining characteristics of the design type.
92 NEW DATES FOR OLD CLOTHS
India, Southeast Asia and the Textile Trade John Guy Indian trade c lo th , so fam ilia r an a spect of the textile landscape that it has long been overlooked by scholars, has recently becom e an im portant focus of research. The vast outreach of the h isto ric Indian textile industry and th e Indian O cean trade, and the ever e a r l ie r dates confirm ed for the c lo th s by carbon-14 testing, are d iscu ssed here in the context of the Southeast Asian m arket by the au th o r of an im portant new s tudy based on trade tex tile s in the V&A’s collection.
100 RUGGIES ON THE RANGE
Tom Cole A w eekend gathering in Tucson brought a select band of en th u s ia s ts together for the AORTA conference. A lthough sm a ll in scale th e event offered the full menu of speakers, in c lu d in g p rehistoric textiles guru E lizabeth Barber, special exhibitions and trad ing possibilities.
4