Mae Festa 50 Years of Collecting Textiles - Peter Pap Oriental Rugs

CENTRAL ASIA – Uzbekistan
Ikat Hanging or Cover (Parda)
Mid-19 th Century
Bukhara
Half silk (silk warps, cotton wefts) warp-faced
ikat. Handspun, handwoven and hand-printed
cotton lining.
174 x 113 cm 68½ x 44½ in
Ikat (abrbandi, from abr + band = cloud-band)
in Central Asia involves dyeing of the warp yarns
through tying off specific lengths to resist each dye
bath in turn, then weaving with either cotton or silk
wefts, half-silk (adras) in this particular instance.
The colors present are natural white, red, yellow,
blue, green and purple suggesting a total of three
dye baths, that for blue doing triple duty. The warps
to be tied and dyed were laid out in great lengths,
folded periodically to economize on time, hence the
stuttering line at one point in this parda. The four
loom widths were joined in a relatively disciplined
manner, although one strip runs the opposite direction
of its neighbors, and another is actually composed of
three equal pieces joined together. It is backed with
locally-produced, hand-printed cotton cloth featuring
little red floral palms against a blue ground, and also
employs a purple all-silk (shoi) material for its edge
finish. A parda was typically used as a bed cover,
hanging, or niche curtain.
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