HALI 7heInternationalMagazine oj Antique(Jar/teland TextileArt
Issue9.5
Editor Daniel Shafler D eputy Editor Jill Tilden S enior Editor Nicholas Purdon Editorial A rchivist & L ibrarian Rachel Evans
Consultant Editors Michael Franses, Robert Pinner
59 EDITORIAL
Women back on top al the Topkapi; Cleveland’s Anne Wardwell bows out in style; more C-14 queries.
61 LETTERS
Setting the record straight on Widener’s rugs, Nureyev’s tomb, Turkmen prices and personal identity; seeking enlightenment on C-14 dating, black sheep and Timorese costume; putting us in the picture on rugs in Warsaw.
65 FRAGMENTS
Contributing Editors Julia Bailey, Alberto Boralevi John Carswell. Steven Cohen Thomas Cole. Rosemary Crill Susan Day. Murray Eiland Jr Herbert Exner. Anthony Hazledine Rina Indictor, Ralph Kaffel Alan Kennedy, Donald King DeWitt Mallary, John Mills Vanessa Moraga, Thomas Murray Penny Oakley, Carlo Maria Suriano Wendel Swan. Pan iz Tanavoli John Wertime
A r t D i r e c tor Liz Dixon A r t Editor Anderida Hatch
Publisher Sebastian Ghandehi
Commercial M anager Andy Powell
A d vertisemen t M an age r Angharad Britton D eputy Advertisement M anager Conrad Shouldice S enior Advertisement Executive Ralph Emmerson Advertisement Executive Rosario Canade
D istribution Assistant Chris Armstrong
Early Nilotic botehs; love alfair of an Italian countess; a Kitaj tapestry for the BE: llajjis recall the glory days.
69 FORUM
A closer look at that most exclusive of Turkmen rugs, the ninth Salor ensi; investigation, revelation and obstruction at a Chinese textile symposium; the man who was offered both Ardabil carpets (sight unseen) at a knockdown price.
T H E C O V E R The W r ight ng o f Shah Jahan on his Forty-Second Lunar B irthday (detail). Agra. I ) iwan-i Khass, 23 O c tober 1632. Padshahnama, lolio 70B, painted by Bhola, ca. 1635. Beginning with the Mughal emperor A k b a r and finally reaching full maturity under his g randson Shah Jahan, a style o f m iniature painting which p laced great value on highly realistic portraiture - unique in the Islamic world up to that time - was developed in India. Concurrently, many o f the textiles appearing in those paintings are extraordinarily detailed. Naturally one wonders whether they too are as accurately illustrated as the subjects o f portraits. This painting shows, in the foreg round. a c lear representation o f a section o f a s tandard red-ground " Indo-Persian’ carpet w ith a scrolling a rabesque and palmette field and c loudband and palmette border, a lthough w ithout the typical large scale palmettos that one might expect to see. Courtesy The Royal Collection H e r Majesty the Queei\.
74 A TIME OF RENEWAL: Liao Luxury
Silks AlanKennedy The art of the Liao, a northern Chinese dynasty of the 10thI Ith century, reveals drive, intelligence and an ability to synthesise; their textile art is only beginning to be known.
78 QALAMKAR-E TASVIRI: Two Persian
Figural Hangings with Religious Themes Marie-Louise Nabholz-Kartaschoff & Gudrun Schubert ‘The Last Judgement’ and ‘The Investiture of Ali’ appear on two rare figural painted cotton qalamkar.
82 MALAGASY LAMBA: Silk Weaving among the Merina of Madagascar SimonPeers A few of these brilliant shimmering textiles survive in scattered collections, but a weaving revival is restoring something of the glory of the lamba tradition.
D a tabase & C irculation Consultant Veronica Purdev
86 THE EARLIEST IKAT
AlisaBaginski & Orit Shamir Excavated in Israel this group of cotton fragments are the earliest warp-ikats found anywhere in the world.
88 BOUND TO THE TORAH
EvelynFriedlander & Fritz Armbruster Symbolising a boy's relationship to Jewish community and law, embroidered Torah binders were used in Germanspeaking lands for over three centuries.
90 A ROMANOV CORONATION RUG
SimonBaker The dowager empress Marie Feodorovna of Russia fled from the Bolsheviks to England in 1918, taking with her a Shirvan pictorial rug depicting happier days.
Hali Public •ations L im ited K ingsgate H ouse, K ingsgate P lace L o ndon N W 6 4 T A , I K T e lephone (4 4 1 71) 3 2 8 9 3 4 1 Eax (4 4 1 71) 3 7 2 5 9 2 4 E -mail hali@centaur.co.uk A M em b e r o f the Centaur Communications L im ited G roup
92 AN IDEAL REALITY: Carpet Images in the Windsor Padshahnama StevenCohen Mughal artists painstakingly depicted people and events. But does this mean that the carpels, textiles and other artefacts in their paintings can he taken literally?
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