IMAGE DETAILS

Lot 140. Serapi carpet, Heriz area, northwest Persia, second half 19th century. Estimate €70,000

| Click to enlarge

09 November 2006

The Autumn rug and textile auction season in Wiesbaden begins this Sunday, 12th November 2006, at 5.00pm, not in Rippon Boswell’s Friedrichstrasse rooms, but at the Wiesbaden Museum at 2 Friedrich-Ebert-Allee, with a benefit concert by the wonderful Parkanyí String Quartet, old friends of Christa and Detlef Maltzahn. The event, organised by Christa, is a sad and poignant one, as she has recently been diagnosed with ALS (commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease), a rare, incurable, degenerative and ultimately fatal neuro-muscular condition. Hence the concert, from which the proceeds of all ticket sales (and other donations) will go the charitable foundation set up to fund ALS research at the Charité University Hospital in Berlin by a fellow sufferer from this cruel disease, the well-known German painter Jörg Immendorff.

Despite the enormous burden placed upon them by Christa’s deteriorating health, the Maltzahns and their devoted team have, with true professionalism, succeeded in orchestrating a sale of great quality and considerable commercial potential for the following Saturday, 18th November.
The market for good quality Turkmen collectables, both at auction and privately, seems to be less sensitive to cyclical and situational fluctuations than all other areas except perhaps fine classical material, which is unfortunately absent from this sale. But as one has come to expect in Wiesbaden, there is a notable selection of Turkmen tribal rugs, mostly at fairly accessible estimates, that stands out ahead of most other types.

These include a Yomut group ensi (lot 4) attributed, pace Azadi, to the Igdir, with an allover lattice design field that echoes elements of the Yomut dyrnak göl. With a lovely lower elem it seems inexpensive at €4,000. Another ensi, this time Tekke, appears as lot 30. Of significant age and great beauty, the elem and borders are generously drawn, and the elegantly composed horizontal panel in the centre is a very attractive feature. Estimated at €6,500, it should achieve more.

Lot 34, estimated at €7,800, is a very rare thing, a dyrnak design mat attributed by RB to the Göklan of Khorasan (part of the eagle-göl complex), with most unusual göl centres and bold kejebe forms in the elems. Lot 53 is an interesting and quite rare Ersari heptagonal asmalyk, akin to a similar, but reportedly finer and considerably older piece in the George Hecksher Collection at the FAMSF, hence the apparently rather low estimate for the present lot. However, novelty value should take it well beyond €2,000. The following lot, an elegant Salor trapping, apparently in good condition, is priced at a level (€14,000) that it should easily achieve. Lot 55 is a good-looking Tekke six-gül torba, with generous spacing, which also looks a potential bargain at just €3,000.

A nine-gül Yomut group chuval, lot 84, catalogued as Karadashli, is estimated at €7,500. It has lovely spacing, but is missing some of the border systems, which disturbs the overall balance of design. Lot 88, another good Tekke six-gül torba, in fine condition including original fringes, looks well worth the €4,600 estimate. A slightly crowded looking Tekke main carpet, lot 89, with multiple border systems but what looks like a clean, clear mid-blue in some of the göl quarters, is estimated at €12,500. Lot 91 is a magnificent if fragmentary early Saryk torba with the kejebe design. The scale is monumental, the drawing lovely, and the colours appear to be ‘right’. Estimated at €6,500, we would expect the white-knuckle Turkomaniacs to bid it up much higher.

Moving to rugs from the Middle Amu Darya region, lot 119 is a fantastic Ersari (or perhaps Uzbek) carpet, a lovely weaving having a well spaced and richly coloured field of alternating shrub or tree filled squares, with good spacing and rich colours. Previously published by Eberhart Herrmann in 1979, here the estimate, at €19,000, is rather more demanding. Lot 145 is another excellent and extremely colourful MAD region carpet, perhaps Ersari work as catalogued, or perhaps that of another non-Turkmen group, with a most unusual, almost Qashqa’i kilim-like squared lattice, estimated at €12,000. Then there is lot 68, a more traditional gülli-göl design Ersari carpet, reasonably estimated at €4,700. The wealth of tertiary design, spacing and brilliant colours make this a very desirable rug.

The sale also includes a handful of Central Asian embroideries of note. Lot 62 is a very busy, colourful Uzbek suzani with an unusual field of small floral rosettes with a myriad of fillings (€12,000).  Even more unusual is lot 103, a Bukhara suzani with the field divided into two rather quirkily executed systems of concentric rhombs ((€19,000), while lot 142 is an 18th century large-medallion suzani, published in Michael Franses’ The Great Embroideries of Bukhara and here estimated at a very challenging €38,000.

The standard set by the Turkmen and other Central Asian material is maintained throughout other parts of the sale, starting with lot 1, a verni-technique pair of Azeri saddle-bags with a charmingly rendered figural couple on the bridge between the two faces (estimate €1,600). Lot 61 is a spectacular Afshar bag face, with unusual detailing to the ornaments found within the individual botehs (€2,600). Lot 74 is another nice Afshar rug, with a very reasonable estimate of €2,500. It has an outstanding border and with remnants of the kilim ends extant, is complete.

An estimate of €15,000 seems appropriate for lot 115, a southwest Persian rug attributed to the Khamseh Confederacy with an unfamiliar design and wonderful colours. Just as good is lot 31, a handsome Qashqa’i kilim, with an unusual design and great visual impact. It is reasonably priced at €4,200, and should do better on the day. Lot 16 is a nice Jaff Kurd bag, and the estimate of €1,300 is a fair reflection of the outstanding colours that the best of these ubiquitous west Persian tribal weavings employ.

Lot 49 is a very beautiful south Caucasian sumakh with extraordinary drawing and an atypical palette. We have never seen a comparable sumakh, which may well justify the €33,000 estimate. Facing it in the catalogue, lot 51 is a stunning Talish-style Kazak with a clear open red field and dramatic ivory-ground borders – a world class rug with an estimate – €30,000 – to match. Lot 127 is a rather stiff and formulaic example of Fachralo weaving, but it is colourful, and the €4,300 is not unreasonable. Lot 156 is a very nice Kazak rug, with a dynamic design, and very unusual primary border. Clearly an older example, it is appropriately estimated at €12,500 and will undoubtedly sell well. And lot 67, a fine, south Caucasian prayer rug, dated to 1804, with the octagonal medallion typical of its silk-foundation genre, will do well to sell against and estimate of €30,000.

Turkish material includes several good and interesting pieces, among them lot 14, a Memling-gül design yellow-ground Konya runner, in characteristically damaged condition. (€7,500). Perhaps the oldest rug in the sale, and the closest to classical period antecedents, is a typical fine, white-ground Kis-Gördes rug, lot 35, published by Zipper, and estimated at €6,500. Among other inheritors of the classical tradition are two Dazgiri small-medallion rugs, lot 37 (€8,000), and lot 123 (€15,000). Traces of the same tradition can also be seen in an unusual Bergama, lot 95, published many years ago by John Eskenazi, which is not overly expensive at €22,000. And lot 144, another Bergama, but with an echo of the classic double re-entrant design, will be a good buy at €12,000.

Although perhaps not quite as plentiful as on other occasions, the sale also includes a full complement of Chinese and East Turkestan rugs, as well a rare and rather pretty Japanese cotton dantsu (lot 25, €1,400). The best of these are lot 130, a bold red-ground Gansu medallion carpet, estimated at €23,000, and lot 132, a beautiful 18th century Ningxia runner fragment, cut and reduced, at just €3,000.

Rippon Boswell’s sales also generally include some decent Baluch weavings. This time, lot 25, a mina khani design bag face appears to have lovely colours (estimate €2,000), and lot 170, a mina khani design rug with an unusual border is reasonably estimated at €2,700. Lot 71, a very colourful camel ground prayer rug (a rare quality for a type seldom considered ‘colourful’) with an allover small boteh field, has a border system is derived from a Turkmen model, done to perfection. Estimated at €2,000, the only evident drawback is the imbalance caused by the abruptness with which the side borders terminate flush with the lower end of the field. One to look out for here is lot 173, an extremely colourful Baluch rug at a very reasonable €1,200, while the following lot is a Baluch version of a Turkmen design, treated here in a different manner with an uncharacteristically brilliant palette. It is very reasonably estimated at €2,400.

There are, of course, a number of large high-ticket carpets in the sale, of which the likely champion is the wonderful ivory-ground Serapi medallion carpet illustrated in detail on the catalogue cover (lot 140). With the ‘highly important’ Halevim imprimateur, much is expected of it against an estimate of €70,000. Expectations are almost as high for lot 90, a pale-ground Agra with an overall pattern, with an estimate of €60,000. However for sheer optimism in today’s market conditions for traditional oriental rugs, the prize must go to the consignor of lot 104, a superb, even arguably best of type, red-ground boteh-design Qashqa’i kelleh, finely woven on a silk foundation, but with the audacious estimate of €85,000. If that sells, then the sale will certainly be accounted an amazing success.