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East Anatolian carpet fragment, 16th century. David Lantz, New York

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16 May 2006

From 21-23 April 2006, the 8th bi-annual meeting of the American Conference on Oriental Rugs returned to Boston, Massachusetts, where ACOR had enjoyed its modest small beginnings back in January 1992. The New England Rug Society was in the spotlight once again as hosts, and in conjunction with the conference's many organisers put on a good show. In the first of two reviews of the event, Lucy Upward reports on the activities in and around Dealers' Row. The loan exhibitions and educational programme will be covered in our next issue.

'The bottom is high!' proclaimed HALI's executive editor, speaking of ACOR 8 'Dealers Row', held in the Castle, a former Armory used for fairs, just across the street from Boston's Park Plaza Hotel. A comment which rang true with many who visited the fair where the overall standard was definitely higher than the last offering in Seattle two years ago. The look of Dealers' Row was professional, thanks to the tireless work of organisers Bethany Mendenhall and Charles Lave.

Beautiful Pre-Columbian textiles were highlights on several booths and everyone had good things to say about the stand of Jim Blackmon from San Francisco. His Nazca tapestry panel, circa 100-300 AD (7), with a stunning red, yellow, orange and purple palette and a bold design with unusually large figures for the small scale of the piece, was voted best textile of the show by more than one observer. This was just one of many great things on Blackmon's stand, including a well-known Middle Amu Darya region Turkmen boteh rug (HALI 3/4,1981, cover), an equally well-known abstract design Baluch camel-ground prayer rug, and a dramatic black and white, Pre-Columbian tapestry panel with grimacing faces. 

Sharing a large stand with Jim Blackmon, Gail Martin from New York, also had an impressive collection on display, making this a perfect partnership. One piece that I particularly liked was a two-panel Peruvian textile with an intricately woven circular pattern in delicate browns and yellows, dated to 100 BC-200 AD (16). Next door was the usual immaculate display from Andrés and Vanessa Moraga. A very rare 18th century Colonial tapestry panel with a multitude of birds flying across the design in strong reds and blues hung next to an equally wonderful deep indigo Argentine camelid wool poncho patterned with large white resist-dyed circles (1).

A further Pre-Columbian feast for the eyes could be found on the stand of Steve Berger's Arte Textil. The centrepiece was a wonderful Chimu tunic covered in what looked like rabbits running across a fiery red ground. I particularly liked the procession of strange figures bearing staves on a Peruvian fragment (10), of circa 900-1100 AD, appearing to tell a colourful story of alien invasion.

Another Pre-Columbian textile shown by Caesar Shepherd's John Goodall (11) also caught my eye for its ghostly pattern of cats and other creatures created in fine net-like sprang work.

Mill Valley's Thomas Murray, who is not normally associated in the public mind with woolly oriental rugs, showed and sold a thick-piled central Anatolian Ayranci rug fragment (3), originating, as his labelling read, from "between Karapinar and Karaman". The deep red and intense blue provided a strong contrast on the walls of his stand with his rare white Japanese boro cover, and a splendid Ainu robe.

Still in Anatolia, the aubergine-ground Karapinar tulip design fragment on the stand of Craig Wallen's Gallery 51 (Philadelphia) had great colours and well drawn flowers. And New York's David Lantz, a newcomer to ACOR, put on an impressive display that demonstrated his delicate taste and wide range of interests. They spanned centuries and continents and comprised well chosen pre-Columbian textiles, a six-niche west Anatolian saf fragment, a superb nine-banded kilim (6) and a wonderful 16th century East Anatolian carpet fragment (right). The latter had a 'unique' brown and cream diamond lattice field design, reminiscent in its multi-level complexity of the carpets of the Akkoyunlu, Karakoyunlu and Timurid Dynasties.

A 19th century Caucasian rug, possibly Karabagh (19), owned by Rodney McDonald of ART Gallery (Rochester, NY), who shared a stand with James Cohen from Salzburg, had a dense and colourful pattern on a white field with two unexplained sections of cotton weft; the overall effect sparkled with energy. McDonald also showed a striking yellow-ground Kuba rug with a field pattern of stars. Beau Ryan from Rare Elements (Concord, MA), also had a good stand, the centrepiece being an Avar pile rug (20) with a strong design in blue and brown.

A mystery rug turned up on David Sorgato's stand: a 19th century fragment (8) with a black, blue and red field design of squares, first labelled Bakhtiari and then later Baluch. Indeed the matter was not even settled by ACOR's closing 'Mystery Rug' plenary session, when panelists Danny Shaffer, Bob Mann, Paul Ramsay and John Collins, and a room full of rug enthusiasts could not shed any light on its true origin, beyond a fairly general 'West Persia' description.

There were lots of intriguing rugs. In addition to some serious early rug fragments, local dealer Wayne Barron (Cambridge, MA) showed a rather special Luri rug (9) with a well drawn branching tree on a dark ground. Suat Çapas from Istanbul's Su-de had a impressive old gabbeh fragment with a diamond design, while another of the sizeable Istanbul contingent (who have, over the years, found the ACOR market much to their liking), was Galeri Shirvan's Erol Kazanci, who showed a rare 18th century Deccani three-niche saf fragment (14). John J. Collins, who was exhibiting both on Dealers' Row and in his newly opened gallery in nearby Watertown, had something remarkable: a most unusual Kurdish prayer rug.

Another favourite was Alberto Levi's extremely long non-Turkmen Central Asian (Uzbek?) runner, which had a thick pile and clear white ground with a red cross motif and a strong red border. Other notable Central Asian rugs included Udo Langauer's large and impressive Salor main carpet, and a good Tekke 6-gül torba on Israeli dealer Mark Berkovich's Marvadim stand. On the first night of the fair, Berkovich also sold what was arguably the best Baluch on the show, a lovely mina khani design bag face, rather damaged, but with gorgeous wool and colour. It was bought by another Israeli, a well-known Baluch collector. Again on the first night, Cocoon's Seref Özen sold a good but damaged Baluch mina khani carpet to a voracious New York collector.

Bag faces of one type or another are standard fare at ACOR fairs, and the choice in Boston was as good as expected, with an unusual white-ground Afshar bag and a lovely outsize Jaff Kurd piece shown by Seattle's Jon Terry, a fine Shahsavan bag with Bertram Frauenknecht and, perhaps most unusual of all, a really pleasing and very rare Sarab area piece (15) shown by New York's Hagop Manoyan.

There were number of attractive Central Asian embroideries, including both Uzbek Lakai small pieces and an array of suzanis, in particular those offered by Cocoon, Gail Martin and Berkovich, who showed an especially pretty 19th century Nurata example. However, the winner of this category had to be, as it often is, Mehmet Çetinkaya, whose 19th century Ura Tube suzani (12), although not in perfect condition, stood out for its intricate design and beautiful range of pastel shades of peaches, pinks and greens.

Seattle-based Asian textile dealer John Ruddy commented that the fact he is not purely a rug dealer means that he feels something of an outsider at ACOR events, but his beautifully considered pieces and display proved that he, like many of the other textile dealers, is an important part of the show. What instantly appealed to me was the powerful asymmetric floral design of his early 20th century Tibetan khaden (4).

With his diverse range of stock, London textile dealer Joss Graham was a steady performer over the weekend, with a fine 'Kente' cloth from Ghana dominating the centre of his popular stand. The star piece, however, had to be his 19th century Zoroastrian embroidered silk bridal shawl (2), in deep green with fine patterning, which sold well to a US collector.

There were numerous textiles that I would have happily taken home, for instance a beautifully finely woven Miao baby carrier (13) with Stuttgart's Galerie Arabesque and/or Michael Craycraft. I liked the simplicity of design and colour of the mini-saf in kilim technique (17) on the Viennese dealer Davut Mizrahi's stand and Rika Yamamoto from Tokyo's Gallery Tulip had a wonderfully vibrant Yazd silk tree-of-life panel (18).

However, my favourite had to be the Ottoman embroidery (5) belonging to Perugia's Ziya Bozoglu, another dealer who had a great number of beautiful pieces displayed on his stand. The delicate flowers and leaves in peach and pale green finely meandered and wound themselves across the surface of the piece, which is either a bohça or a turban cover.

These are only a handful of the good (some even great) things to be seen. Talking about this ACOR with those who also attended ACOR 1 in the same place 14 years ago shows the great changes this event has undergone. In 1992, only 250 ruggies attended the first conference in Boston, and there was no commercial outlet at all, beyond a swap room and a handful of sumakh bags laid out for sale on a borrowed table by John Wertime. This year saw at least twice as many attendees, and in terms of the fair alone, ACOR 2006 was a successful event, with a good bit of mystery and intrigue thrown in, for which the organisers and exhibitors should be proud.