HALITheInternationalMagazineof AntiqueCarpetandTextileArt

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HALI86

THE COVER Persian knotted pile khorjin face, 19th century. 0.58m (I'll" ) square. Included in the major ICOC exhibition at San Francisco’s Fort Mason Centre in 1990 (see Murray Eiland Jr., Oriental Rugs from Pacific Collections, no.66), when it was catalogued as “probably Karadagb region”. This is the collector’s own attribution for this Persian-knotted bag front and refers to the mountainous border area of Azerbaijan due north of Tabriz. However, the medallion design, also known in southwest Persian weavings, is closely echoed in a south Caucasian rug in the 1990 Eiland catalogue (no. 178), where it is suggested that the bag face is “alleged to he Kurdish”. The border design is widely seen on Persian tribal bags and rugs of most regions. Warp: wool, Z2S, mixed ivory and tan-grey, depressed; weft: wool, Z2S, salmon and dark brown, 2, 3 or 4 shoots; knot: asymmetric, open left, H8 x V8 = 64/in2 (992/dm2); sides & ends: missing; colours: (11) dark red, salmon, pink, gold, apricot, grape, blue, light blue, light green, dark brown (corroded), natural ivory. Michael Rothberg Collection, San Francisco.

Issue 86

65 EDITORIAL Oriental rug events on both sides of the Atlantic have thrown into relief the changing character of the collector rug market.

67 LETTERS

Mending’s ‘Turkish’ rugs: painted from the imagination or from West European copies? A plea for further enlightenment on Caucasian weaving culture; the great segusha debate gathers pace with sightings of sash wearers; a warning that donations can prove a mixed blessing; tribal rugs and Islamic artistic traditions; ‘Arequipa' culture judged a misnomer; in defence of O' Bannon; a view of the dating of East Turkestan rugs.

71 FORUM

A one-day symposium on early Turkish rugs held at Sotheby's,

London, turns a few notions upside down as luminaries Franses, Mills, Thompson and Denny open up the dehate.

78 COLLECTOR S TOUCH

Mary Hunt Kalilenberg

One of the finest corporate collections of textile and folk art is the result of the private passion of Lloyd E. Cotsen. formerly CEO of Neutrogena. Navajo serapes, tie-dyed silks, Bakuba raffia, ikat robes and much else have transformed corridors and work spaces. Now they will be seen by a wider audience al the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

86 WEDDING TEXTILES FROM SCANIA

Michael Franses

The remote villages of rural Southern Sweden developed a distinctive weaving style with international resonance during the 18th and 19th centuries, as can be seen in the striking tapestry weaves and embroideries in the Khalili Collection of Swedish wedding textiles.

92 ACOR 3: FOCUS SESSIONS Hands-on Focus Sessions were at the heart of the 3rd American

Conference on Oriental Rugs in Santa Monica. The profound and the mundane were equally represented, as eloquent and prosaic analysis of weaving matters provided both information and entertainment for an attentive audience.

95 ACOR 3: EXHIBITIONS Michael Rothberg. Brian Morehouse and the Textile Group of Los Angeles’ all too brief exhibition of ‘Saddle Bags and Saddle Covers of Iran and the Caucasus’, proved a genuine connoisseur’s choice, the high point of ACOR 3 for most visitors. A second ACOR inspired exhibition, organised by Raymond Benardout and the Textile Museum Associates of Southern California, presented a vast and eclectic assembly o f‘Woven Stars’from local private collections.

102 EXHIBITIONS Ignazio Vok’s Caucasian and Persian flatweaves go on show near Padua; ‘Textiles of Late Antiquity’at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; from Paris to Tokyo, ‘Serindia’

examines cross-cultural influences along the ancient Silk Road; plus a reinstallation of the Islamic galleries at the Cleveland Museum of Art; Islamic art in Danish museums; more Silk Road art and artefacts in ‘Uzbekistan’ at the Linden Museum, Stuttgart; Guatemalan textiles at the V&A, London;

Japanese kesa at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; and two brief reviews from New York: ‘American Schoolgirl Needlework'

at the MMA, and ‘Converging Cultures: Art and Identity in Spanish America’ in Brooklyn.

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