This amorphous selection of Anatolian village pile rugs, prayer ... - Hali

Photo by Longevity, London
ANATOLIAN RUGS
70 HALI ISSUE 157
1
1 The ‘Flames’ carpet,
central Anatolia,
16th or 17th century.
1.45 x 2.11m (4'9" x
6'11"). Orient Stars
Collection, Stuttgart
unusually
anatolian
RALPH KAFFEL
This amorphous selection of Anatolian village pile rugs, prayer rugs, and
yastıks is the choice of one of HALI’s most active contributing editors.
They all have rare and unusual, even one-off, designs that aptly represent
the lyrical quality of the best Anatolian village weavings.
UNUSUAL, EVEN UNIQUE, knotted pile rugs were woven
throughout the Orient, but perhaps nowhere more so than in
the village heartland of Anatolia, where weavers have for centuries
produced personal artistic statements for family use, as dowry
pieces, or for barter, with little regard for the demands and
vagaries of the marketplace.
A word about my approach in this brief survey of ‘oddball’
Anatolian rugs might be in order. I cannot hope to compete
with the likes of Lawrence Kearney, whose lyrical and emotive
treatment of a selection of Caucasian rugs in a recent issue of
HALI was so well received by many readers. 1 However, as a
collector of many different types of post-classical tribal and
village ‘heirloom’ rugs from Anatolia, the Caucasus, Persia
and Central Asia, and as a close observer of the marketplace,
my interest here, in addition of course to the quest for beauty,
is both statistical and classificatory. In this activity I pay
particular attention to aspects of design, format, pattern and
motif, their frequency and variation across a wide corpus of
pieces, including those seen and handled in person, those
offered on the international market, and those encountered in
the extensive literature on oriental rugs. The wide-reaching
relationships and associations revealed and confirmed by such
comparisons are a source of constant delight.
I have chosen the 19 Anatolian knotted-pile rugs, yastıks and
fragments illustrated here as representative of that extraordinary
tradition of Turkish weavings with unconventional designs. Fifteen
of them, to the best of my knowledge, are one-offs (one should
use the word ‘unique’ with caution), while four are quite rare,
with three or fewer known analogies. I have seen, and in some
cases handled, all but two of them. Seventeen are most likely from
the 18th or 19th centuries, 2 with only two from an earlier period.
For the most part, my selection reflects the kind of rugs that might
still be available in the market, rather than the earlier examples
ANATOLIAN RUGS
2
2 Cappadocian village
rug, central Anatolia,
19th century. 1.09 x
1.60m (3'7" x 5'3").
Jon M. & Deborah
Anderson Collection,
Columbus, Ohio
HALI ISSUE 157 71

ANATOLIAN RUGS
Photo by Dennis Anderson
72 HALI ISSUE 157
3
3 West Anatolian
village rug, before
1800. 1.37 x 1.98m
(4'6" x 6'6"). Jim
Dixon Collection,
Occidental, California
4 West (?) Anatolian
yastık, 19th century.
0.58 x 0.86m (1'11" x
2'10"). Bethany Mendenhall
Collection,
Irvine, California
5 Konya yastık,
central Anatolia,
dated 1287 AH
(1870 AD). 0.58 x
0.89m (1'11" x 2'11").
Gilbert & Hillary
Dumas Collection,
Kensington,
California
that are mainly limited to museum holdings or to venerable
private collections. The two early rugs, 1 and 18, are indulgences,
as they are my personal favourites.
A Konya prayer rug without known comparisons is the perfect
introduction to this ‘amorphous’ group of Anatolian pieces cover.
Woven before 1800, its simple, angular design emphasises the
quality and intensity of saturated colour that epitomises old Konya
village weavings. The rug was in the San Francisco Bay Area trade
prior to its purchase by the Milanese dealer Alberto Levi, who
used a detail of it for the cover of his inaugural catalogue in
2000, with this comment: “A rare and unusual village rug with
a niche design on a yellow background, the niche created by
simple lines that carve into the red field, skillfully punctuated
by eight-petalled rosettes both inside the niche and flanking it
near its cusp. An interesting crescendo rhythm is adopted for
the border, culminating in a sort of canopy of lozenges highlighted
by the oxidation of the brown wool, reminding us of
the shape of kapunuk trappings of the Turkoman tribes.” 3
Another apparently ‘unique’ rug, the so-called ‘Flames’ carpet 1,
was available in October 1994 at Konya’s famous Young Partners
shop, described by Cemal Palamutçu as a 16th century Sivas, at a
price which strongly suggested that only serious collectors with
substantial financial resources need apply. It was soon acquired
by the late Heinrich Kirchheim and was exhibited in 1995 in an
augmented ‘Orient Stars’ display held at Museum Schloss Rheydt
in Moenchengladbach. 4 The Sivas attribution may be questionable;
central Anatolia is the more likely place of origin, but its age
(17th century or earlier), beauty and importance are beyond
doubt. No comparable knotted-pile example is known, but
the style of the ten ascending turreted motifs bears a strong
relationship to the multiple prayer niches of certain ancient
Anatolian kilims. 5 A similar border of bold ‘S’ shapes appears
on an 18th century Kazak rug in Kirchheim’s Orient Stars. 6
A beautifully colourful little 19th century Cappadocian village
5
rug 2 from the collection of the late Jon M. (Mac) Anderson in
Columbus, Ohio, was first seen during the 2002 ACOR exhibition
‘Rugs of Rare Beauty from Midwestern Collections’ in Indianapolis.
7 Very much like a yastık (pillow or cushion face) in design
and proportions, it is akin to another Central Anatolian piece
from the Dennis Dodds Collection, about which Brian Morehouse
has written: “This yastık is uncharacteristic in the allocation of
the small amount of space to the striped field in proportion to
the large border and end panel areas”, 8 a statement that applies
equally to the present rug. The wide border here is composed of
‘Solomon’ stars enclosed within polychrome rectangles. Similar
eight-pointed stars appear on a red-ground border on another of
the yastıks published by Morehouse. 9 Perhaps the closest comparison
among rugs is a runner with a border of stars on a black
ground in the collection of Dr Ayan Gülgönen in Istanbul. 10
The vast Jim Dixon Collection, now mostly kept in Occidental,
California, contains a number of highly unusual pieces, two of
which are featured in this survey. One of them is a pre-1800 west
Anatolian village rug that, while composed of familiar elements,
has no close parallels in the literature 3. Previously published
in 2000 in Murray Eiland’s HALI article on Dixon’s collection, 11
its central ‘re-entrant’ panel is related to those seen on the
‘hearth’ rugs of Bergama12 and on later Bergama rugs, 13 as well as
to certain 16th/17th century Holbein pattern carpets attributed to
the Konya district. 14 However, its most uncommon feature is the
disproportionately wide lateral meander border, which is closely
similar to that on a well-known 16th/17th century Konya ‘animal
pelt’ prayer rug in the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum (TIEM),
Istanbul. 15 In the 19th century similar wide meander borders were
adopted by Melas weavers. 16
A charming 19th century yastık 4 from the Bethany Mendenhall
Collection in Irvine, California, was exhibited during the 2007
Istanbul ICOC. 17 Probably made in western Anatolia, it is one of
only two published weavings in which the classic Ladik border
design of tulips and carnations is adapted to create an all-over
field pattern, the other being a well-known ivory-ground rug,
formerly in the Kinebanian Collection in Holland, first published
by Ulrich Schürmann, 18 who remarked of this field design:“…how
much rarer…in a carpet like this one…which could have come
from Konya and in which the whole inner panel is covered with
the kind of repeating pattern normally only found in the border”.
Among yastıks, the nearest analogies I can find are three examples
with a field pattern of stylised geometric rosettes enclosed by
leaves, 19 while among rugs there are Konya examples with fields
of similar rosettes in a repeat pattern (and one with tulips in the
corners), 20 but none of them have either white grounds or the
alternating pattern of rosettes and tulips. 21
A rare Konya yastık belonging to San Francisco Bay Area
collectors Hillary and Gilbert Dumas 5, was selected for the
cover of the catalogue accompanying the exhibition ‘Trefoil: Guls,
Stars & Gardens’, held at the Mills College Art Gallery in
Oakland in early 1990. 22 Inscribed and dated 1287 AH (1870 AD),
nothing quite like it was known until 1995, when a closely similar
but undated example, assigned to the first half of the 19th century,
was advertised by the late Massachusetts dealer Basha Ahamed. 23
The authors of the Trefoil catalogue point to the similarity of the
star motif to the design of the ubiquitous ‘Seljuk’ star seen on the
early carpets found in Konya and Beyshehir, as well as in classical
large-pattern ‘Holbein’ carpets, Star Ushak carpets, and their
descendants. 24 Similar stars also appear in other 19th century
yastıks, although not in an over-all pattern. 25
The memory of the funkiness and ‘unique’ design of a pre-1800
Konya prayer rug 6 with an abrashed field (green above, blue
below) belonging to the Massachusetts collector Gerard Paquin
has stayed with me ever since I first saw it in April 2002 at ACOR 6
in Indianapolis during his ‘From the Cedar Chest’ session. Woven
in two pieces on a narrow loom, with each half having selvedges
on both sides, it was an immediate choice for this survey. The
depiction of hands, commonplace in Baluch and Caucasian prayer
Photo by Don Tuttle
rugs, is very rare in Turkish ones. How rare? My index of Turkish
prayer rugs contains more than 4,000 images, of which only six,
all from eastern Anatolia, depict pairs of hands. 26
The profusion of dots in the field of this rug may be perceived
as depicting an animal pelt, although Paquin suggests that they
may be apotropaic, meant to ward off evil, and represent part of
the çintamani design. 27 The little strips of mosaic tile-like patterning
between the field and the main horizontal borders are a unique
feature in my experience, as are the two narrow red strips flanking
the field. The border motif is known from a number of central
Anatolian rugs, 28 but it does not appear on any prayer format pieces
from the area. The outer guard border design repeats in the centre
of the top and bottom borders.
While the focus of this survey is on unusual designs rather
than structural features, Paquin has kindly provided me with
some fascinating structural information. The rug is ‘wefty’ with
between five and nine undyed shoots between each row of large
knots (18 per square inch), rather like a tülü weave. The wefts are
S-spun, which is something that he has never seen in a Turkish
village rug. Some sections of weft are dyed green and yellow,
and appear to be of goat hair. Paquin believes that it is “… a folk
expression, a vision of a prayer rug and its elements from someone
who has been to a city mosque, but who is steeped in the
traditions of the countryside, its beliefs and folkways”.
The much-missed Professor Charles Lave’s brief obituary in
HALI 156 mentioned his “highly individual, even quirky, taste”. 29
An 18th/19th century central Anatolian prayer rug is a prime
example 7. Like the Paquin rug above, I first saw it during an ACOR
Cedar Chest’ session, this time conducted by Charles and his
wife Bethany Mendenhall in Seattle in March 2004. Like that of
the Paquin rug, the image of this rug has stayed in my mind.
Charles called it his ‘Devil rug’, and the very unusual pale
purple motif in the lower half of the field has an ominous look
to it. Perhaps it was intended by the weaver to be a large amulet
for protection from the evil eye. 30 It may be inferred from the
three red minarets in the upper panel that this was an attempt to
replicate a more formal ‘columned’ rug, albeit one without known
4 6
ANATOLIAN RUGS
6 Konya prayer rug,
central Anatolia,
before 1800. Woven
in two pieces,
1.27 x 1.73m (4'2" x
5'8"). Gerard Paquin
Collection, Northampton,
Massachusetts
HALI ISSUE 157 73

ANATOLIAN RUGS
7 The ‘Devil’ prayer
rug, central Anatolia,
18th/19th century.
1.23 x 1.63m (4'0"
x 5'4"). Charles Lave
Collection, Irvine,
California
74 HALI ISSUE 157
Photo by Don Tuttle
parallels. The two little yellow ‘houses’ in the blue areas between
the minarets are typical design elements of the west Anatolian
‘Transylvanian’ workshop genre. The yellow-ground border is
simple; an undulating red line snaking between quartered rectangles.
While it is unusual, a number of comparisons are known. 31
A 19th century prayer rug 8, and a very closely similar relative
sold at Lefevre & Partners in London in 1976, 32 belong to a small
family of rugs woven by Greek and Caucasian settlers in the westcentral
Anatolian towns of Mihalıççık, Seyitgazi and Afyon, as
defined in 1986 by Georg Butterweck and Dieter Orasch, 33 who
propose that the hooked, stepped mihrab, common to all the
rugs in the group, may have been intended to represent the
spires of a Gothic cathedral. Some of the rugs in the group have
been attributed to Konya in auction catalogues 34 and in the rug
literature, 35 but the weave, handle and palette of the present
rug is quite atypical of Konya. Both it and the Lefevre rug differ
markedly from the others in featuring a central tree-of-life and
in having bold, scalloped cartouches containing hooked forms
superimposed on the borders. 36 Two other examples have similar
wide multi-striped borders without cartouches. 37
7
Photo by Don Tuttle
The central Anatolian town of Aksaray lies between Karapınar
to the south and Kirs¸ehir to the north, with Nevs¸ehir and Nig˘de
to the east. According to Iten-Maritz, 38 Aksaray was a centre for
pile carpet-making during the Seljuk period, but carpet weaving
there fell into steep decline during the 18th and 19th centuries.
The town is now best known for kilims, sometimes attributed
to Obruk, with repeat patterns of large geometric or hooked
motifs on ivory grounds. 39
The dotted white ground found on a very unusual Aksaray
rug 9 is traditionally said to depict an animal skin. 40 The nine
geometric motifs may represent splayed animal forms, perhaps
modelled after an image of a single large pelt such as the wellknown
17th century Konya rug in the TIEM, from the S¸ eyh Baba
Yusuf Mosque in Sivrihisar-Eskis¸ehir. 41 A similar motif, piled in
green within an ivory medallion, appears on an ‘early’ red-ground
Konya fragment (probably 18th century), recently advertised by
Ziya Bozog˘lu of Perugia. 42 The rug’s relationship to Konya weavings
is evident in its border design. 43 The general field layout is evocative
of the TIEM’s 16th century white-ground Ushak lattice-design
rug with ovoid ‘medallions’ at the interstices, which was also
collected from the S¸ eyh Baba Yusuf Mosque, 44 and of a yellowground
rug with stylised star motifs exhibited in Munich in 1984
by Eberhart and Ulrike Herrmann. 45
Previously unpublished, an 18th century east Anatolian village
rug 10 was seen in ‘Heavenly Gardens’ a one-man show of a small
part of the Dixon Collection held in November 2002 in Walnut
Creek, California. Related by design to the extended group of rugs
that Joseph McMullan called ‘Holbein variants’ on account of their
strong relationship to earlier rugs of Seljuk origin, 46 its yellowground
border is a simplified stylisation of Kufic script. A minority
of these Holbein variant rugs have the perfectly formed ‘Seljuk
star’ seen here at the centre of their elaborate medallions. 47
It is interesting to compare this enigmatic rug to a 16th-17th
century example in the Vakıflar Museum, Istanbul, 48 attributed to
eastern Anatolia, which has similar box-like motifs (they also
appear in various Caucasian rugs), surrounding its medallion.
Another valid comparison is to a 16th-17th century yellow-ground
medallion rug with Holbein-type motifs and small Seljuk stars
in the field, recently published by Moshe Tabibnia of Milan. 49
Jim Dixon suggests that his rug’s unusual palette and structural
characteristics – black ground, natural black warps and wefts,
and a relatively low density of about eighty knots per square
8
Photo by Don Tuttle
8 West-central
Anatolian prayer rug,
19th century. 1.02 x
1.22m (3'4" x 4'0").
Ralph & Linda Kaffel
Collection, Piedmont,
California
9 Aksaray rug,
central Anatolia,
before 1800. 1.07 x
1.27m (3'6" x 4'2").
Ralph & Linda Kaffel
Collection, Piedmont,
California
10 East Anatolian
village rug, 18th
century. 1.35 x
1.70m (4'5" x 5'7").
Jim Dixon Collection,
Occidental, California
Photo by Don Tuttle
ANATOLIAN RUGS
9
HALI ISSUE 157 75
10

Photo by Don Tuttle
ANATOLIAN RUGS
Photo by Dennis Anderson
76 HALI ISSUE 157
12
11 Konya rug fragment,
central Anatolia,
early 19th century.
1.02 x 1.73m (3'4" x
5'8"). Ralph & Linda
Kaffel Collection,
Piedmont, California
12 East Anatolian
prayer rug, 19th century.
1.02 x 1.03m
(3'4" x 3'41 ⁄2"). Ralph &
Linda Kaffel Collection,
Piedmont, California
13 East or central
Anatolian carpet
fragment, 18th/19th
century. 0.89 x 2.21m
(2'11" x 7'3").
Marshall & Marilyn
R. Wolf Collection,
New York
11
inch – may suggest an origin as far east as Erzurum. It is quite
similar in its overall palette to another black-ground rug, attributed
to Anatolian Kurds, offered at auction in Germany in 2004. 50
The Turkish term saz, according to Peter Stone, means “reed,
bulrush or enchanted forest”, and defines an Ottoman floral design
of leaves, rosettes and palmettes. 51 In the carpet and textile trade
the term has acquired a more specific meaning, being applied to
stylised serrated leaves, most often placed on a diagonal bias in
the pattern. When an early 19th century Konya fragment 11,
now in my own collection, was reviewed in HALI’s Auction Price
Guide in 1997, 52 it was pointed out that saz leaves are familiar on
Mujur and Karapınar rugs, and on yastıks from various parts of
Anatolia, 53 but that they are all but unknown in Konya village
rugs. I know of only one other example, sold twice at Sotheby’s
in New York. 54 The border of stylised cartouche motifs, here
repeated in the medallions, is best known from a number of
Anatolian coupled-column prayer rugs. 55 Werner Brüggemann
and Harald Böhmer published three drawings to illustrate the
evolution of this design. If we follow their reasoning, the border
here is an 18th century variant. 56 The rug is reduced and
represents about two-thirds of its original length, enough to
13
preserve its design integrity.
I know of no close analogies among piled prayer rugs to a 19th
century east Anatolian weaving from my own collection 12. Its
closest counterparts are three Reyhanlı prayer kilims with similar
mihrabs and virtually identical multi-striped border systems. One
was published by Yanni Petsopoulos in 1979, 57 a second, now with
Dr Albert Mazzie in San Francisco, was published the same year
by Alan Marcuson in the slender booklet that accompanied an
exhibition at the Douglas Hyde Gallery in Dublin, Ireland, 58 and
the third was posted online in January 2002 by Dr Mark Berkovich
of Marvadim Gallery in Israel. The similarity of this prayer rug
to the kilims suggests that it may have been woven in southeastern
Turkey, in or around Reyhanlı, which is near Gaziantep and the
border of Kurdish Anatolia, an area not well known for its pile
weaving. The rug was exhibited at Fort Mason during the 1990
San Francisco ICOC, catalogued thus by Murray Eiland: “This is the
kind of rug that defies labels, as its ivory warps would not seem
congruent with the field design and colors, both of which suggest
eastern Anatolian Kurdish work. The tightly packed knotting
allows virtually no weft to be seen from the back of the rug, and
the texture is most unusual.” 59
A ‘unique’ central or eastern Anatolian fragment 13 from the
Marshall and Marilyn R. Wolf Collection in New York was exhibited
at the Textile Museum in Washington in 2002, and was
published in Walter Denny’s accompanying catalogue. 60 Its palette
argues for an east rather than central Anatolian attribution, and it
could easily be dated to the 18th century. I know of no comparable
examples, but a smaller fragment, probably from the same
rug, was offered at auction in Milan in November 2005. 61 Denny
wrote that the four-pointed medallions are stylised descendants
of earlier quatrefoil motifs; however the scalloped shape of the
cruciforms may well relate to the crosses seen in Armenian rugs. 62
These motifs, as well as the palette of the Wolf fragment, are
very similar to those of a Surahani carpet published by Volkmar
Gantzhorn. 63 Denny also remarks that the pendant motifs represent
either Anatolian silver jewellery or mosque lamps, but they are
surely the latter, as jewellery is usually represented by tasseled
triangles, seen used as filler motifs in field 64 or elem 65 designs.
Depictions of mosque lamps are, not surprisingly, less common
in secular pieces, 66 than in prayer rugs. 67 A closely similar rendering
of the lamp motif can be seen in the well-known 15th
century ‘re-entrant’ prayer rug in the Topkapı Saray, Istanbul. 68
The recently opened Vakıflar Museum in Ankara has substantial
holdings of excellent 18th and 19th century Anatolian village
rugs, including several very unusual Melas weavings. 69 Of these,
the prayer rug illustrated here 14 is perhaps the most unusual. I
have over 2,000 images of Melas rugs in my photograph index and
can find nothing close to this prayer rug, which has a coral red
field on which a blossoming blue tree-of-life topped by a small
ivory pentagon representing a prayer niche is superimposed.
Perhaps the closest is an example offered in London in 1976 by
Lefevre, 70 which also features a tree and has a light yellow-ground
border decorated with urn-like reciprocal motifs identical to those
in the ivory-ground border of the Ankara rug. These motifs, while
rare, are used in the borders of ‘Medjedeh’ prayer rugs, of which
at least four examples are known. 71
A lovely 19th century central Anatolian yastık 15, which at
the time belonged to Corban LePell, was included in the ‘Passages’
exhibition during the 5th ACOR in Burlingame, California in 2000.
In the exhibition notes it was described as having “a rare design
composed of two red and one blue rectangles, containing central
eight-pointed stars surrounded by small angular motifs piled in
white, green, blue, light red and aubergine, framed by an ‘hourglass’
design border.” This ‘hourglass’ or ‘double-M’ motif may
offer a clue to its origin, as an identical border appears on four
central Anatolian yastıks published by Morehouse, 72 on a central
Anatolian ‘pomegranate tree’ yastık recently sold at Grogan’s in
Massachusetts, 73 and on a yastık sold at Skinner in Boston. 74 While
this exact border seems to be exclusive to yastıks, stylised versions
of the motif do appear on a handful of central Anatolian rugs. 75
The field design of three rectangles appears to have more in
common with Caucasian rather than Anatolian rugs. 76 While
there are no close analogies among published yastıks, a somewhat
related example attributed to eastern Anatolia, with its
field divided into one blue and one red dotted rectangle, was
exhibited at the conference hotel during the 2007 Istanbul ICOC. 77
Even though it has a red ground, a whimsical central Anatolian
mat 16 was included in my 2003 article on yellow-ground Konya
rugs. At the time I wrote: “I would place it in the group for its
palette, all-over pattern of cruciforms and other odd shapes, naïve
border, wool and weave characteristics”. 78 Its function is not
obvious, as its almost square format and the lack of end panels
argue against it being a pillow cover. The cross-like motifs are
formed by squares with vertical and horizontal projections and
most probably owe their origin to very similar elements, which
Carl Johann Lamm describes as a “design of square cartouches
in alternate rows”, seen on a 15th century brown-ground fragment
found at Fostat in Egypt. 79 Our weaver clearly had difficulty
executing the pattern with any precision, as well as problems
with the border, but it is such imperfections that brand it as
‘unique’ and add to its charm.
Discussing the only yastık published in his landmark Islamic
Carpets, Joseph McMullan wrote: “Occasionally a small Turkish
mat is found which contains an extraordinary amount of power
within a very small space.” 80 Of very different design, a 19th
century west Anatolian yastık 17 from the Wendel and Diane
Swan Collection is another such. 81 It is rare but not unique; a
squarer but otherwise almost identical piece was exhibited by
Raymond Benardout in Los Angeles during the Santa Monica
ACOR in 1996. In his Woven Stars catalogue, Benardout remarked
that it was “… a very unusual yastık from Oushak. I have no awareness
of encountering in my dealings such an interesting mat.” 82
Both yastıks owe their design to 16th/17th century Anatolian
village rugs with large, elaborate central medallions, 83 while their
distinctive palette also occurs on an 18th century Aksaray rug
offered at auctuon in Germany in 2004. 84 Morehouse published
a related yastık with a less elaborate central medallion. 85
A well-known 17th century Konya prayer rug, without recorded
parallel in the literature 18, serves as an appropriate terminus for
this personal survey. On exhibition in the Ibrahim Pas¸a Saray
during ICOC XI in Istanbul in 2007, 86 it is, in the words of Nazan
ANATOLIAN RUGS
14
14 Melas prayer rug,
southwest Anatolia,
19th century. 1.19 x
1.36m (3'11" x 4'6").
Vakıflar Museum,
Ankara
HALI ISSUE 157 77

ANATOLIAN RUGS
78 HALI ISSUE 157
16
15
15 Konya (?) yastık,
central Anatolia, 19th
century. 0.46 x 0.91m
(1'6" x 3'0"). Private
collection, courtesy
Corban LePell,
Hayward, California
16 Konya mat,
central Anatolia, circa
1800. 0.61 x 0.66m
(2'0" x 2'2"). Ralph &
Linda Kaffel
Collection, Piedmont,
California
17 Ushak (?) yastık,
west Anatolia, 19th
century. 0.56 x 0.86m
(1'10" x 2'10").
Wendel & Diane
Swan Collection,
Alexandria, Virginia
Ölçer and Walter Denny “… among the finest treasures from the
vast collection of prayer rugs in the T.I.E.M.” They tentatively
assign it to Konya and the 18th century and propose that the
unusual elaborate shape of its prayer niche is “suggestive of the
three dimensional muqarnas forms commonly found in niche areas
above the doorways and mihrabs in Ottoman buildings and
those of their Seljuk predecessors in Anatolia.” 87
However, there is little agreement among the authors of the
various publications in which this rug appears regarding its age
or origin. In the recent Istanbul ICOC catalogue, it is dated to
the 17th century and attributed unambiguously to Konya, with
its provenance given as “from Sultan Alaaddin Keykubat Tomb in
Konya”. 88 The authors of the Turkish Ministry of Culture’s Turkish
Handwoven Carpets also date it to the 17th century, attribute it to
Kula, and rather fancifully suggest that its elaborate, denselypacked
floral border represents the Garden of Eden. 89 Although the
floral border is untypical of Konya weavings, there is a precedent
in a 16th century ‘re-entrant’ prayer rug with a related border,
tentatively attributed to Konya, in the Orient Stars Collection. 90
Plain ivory- or camel-coloured mihrabs, rare in most types of
prayer rugs, consistently appear in the 17th and 18th century
‘Transylvanian’ genre. 91 Stefano Ionescu has published at least 22
such rugs, variously attributed to west Anatolian weaving centres
such as Ushak and Melas. 92
Turkey is full of surprises. While some dealers and collectors
bemoan that the market has been ‘picked over’, rare and even
‘unique’ pieces continue to emerge. Perhaps this modest survey,
subjective as it is, might inspire others to share more of their
unknown treasures with us. In any case, sincere gratitude is due
to the private collectors whose generous co-operation has made
this article possible. I am deeply saddened that the late Charles
Lave is not here to see his ‘Devil’s rug’ grace the pages of HALI.
17
18 Konya prayer rug,
central Anatolia,
17th century. 1.09 x
1.78m (3'7" x 5'10").
Collected from the
tomb of Sultan Alaaddin
Keykubat in
Konya, Türk ve Islam
Eserleri Museum,
Istanbul, no.354
ANATOLIAN RUGS
HALI ISSUE 157 79
18

ANATOLIAN RUGS
80 HALI ISSUE 157
NOTES
1 Lawrence Kearney, ‘A Kind of
Meta-Art, Caucasian Rugs from
the Rudnick Collection’, HALI 152,
2007, pp.62-71.
2 Five can be assigned to the 18th
century, twelve to the 19th.
3 Alberto Levi, Antique Textile Art
1, Milan 2000, pl.1
4 HALI 82, 1995, p.111.
5 Cathryn M. Cootner, Anatolian
Kilims – The Caroline and H.
McCoy Jones Collection, San
Francisco 1990, pls.6, 13, 17;
Volkmar Enderlein, Orientalische
Kelims, Berlin 1986, pp.60/61; Jack
Cassin, Image Idol Symbol,
Ancient Anatolian Kelims, New
York 1989, pl.6; Jürg Rageth, in
E.Heinrich Kirchheim
et al., Orient Stars, A Carpet Collection,
Stuttgart 1993, writes of
pl.145, a yellow-ground runner
fragment with stepped motifs,
“this is an excellent example of
the interrelationship between
kilims and carpet designs”.
6 Ibid., pl.4.
7 HALI 121, 2002, p.49.
8 Brian Morehouse,Yastiks: Cushion
Covers and Storage Bags of Anatolia,
Philadelphia 1996, p.94, pl.82
(1'11" x 2'8").
9 Ibid, pl.83.
10 Ayan Gülgönen, Konya Cappadocia
Carpets from the 17th to the
19th Centuries, Istanbul 1997,
pl. 58 (3'4" x 10'2").
11 Murray L. Eiland Jr., ‘Oriental
Rugs in Occidental’, HALI 109,
2000, p.104 = Skinner, Bolton
MA, 6 December 1987, lot 110.
12 Peter E. Saunders, Tribal Visions,
Marin 1980, pl.56.
13 Peter Bausback, Alte und Antike
Orientalische Knüpfkunst, Mannheim
1983, p.13.
14 Christopher Alexander, A Foreshadowing
of 21st Century Art.
The Color and Geometry of Very
Early Turkish Carpets, New York
1993, p.192 (a “waving border
carpet”); Eduardo Concaro &
Alberto Levi, eds., Sovrani Tappeti,
Milan 1999, pl.23 = HALI 55,
1991, p.63 = HALI 96, p. 61.
15 TIEM no.395; Robert Pinner &
Walter B. Denny, eds., Oriental
Carpet & Textile Studies II:
Carpets of the Mediterranean
Countries 1400-1600, London
1986, p.5 = Oktay Aslanapa, One
Thousand Years of Turkish
Carpets, Istanbul 1988, fig.119 =
Nazan Ölçer et al., Turkish Carpets
from the 13th-18th Centuries,
Istanbul 1996, pl.145 = HALI 88,
1996, p.99 = HALI 152, 2007,
p.100.
16 Ulrich Schürmann, Oriental
Carpets, London 1966, p.102 =
Michael Franses, An Introduction
to the World of Rugs, London
1973, pl.8; Anton Danker, Meisterstucke
Orientalischer Knüpfkunst:
Sammlung Anton Danker, Wiesbaden
1966, pl.13; Sotheby’s,
London, 9 January 1981, lot 159.
17 Hülye Tezcan & Sumiyo
Okumura, eds., The Weaving
Heritage of Anatolia 1, Istanbul
2007, p.156, pl.16.
18 Schürmann 1966, op.cit.,
pp.74/5 = Rippon Boswell,
Wiesbaden, 19 November 2005,
lot 91 = HALI 145, 2006, p.116.
19 Grogan, Dedham MA, 22 April
2006, lot 115; HALI 88, 1996,
p.117; Tezcan & Okumura, op.cit.,
pl.34, Simsek Collection.
20 Concaro & Levi, op.cit., pl.42;
Christie’s, London, 28 April 2004,
lot 99; HALI 41, 1988, ad.p.78;
Leone Mesciulam & Louisa
Belleri, Tappeti Anatolici dal ‘600 al
‘900, Genoa 1981, pl.12.
21 Peter F. Stone prefers ‘Rhodian
lilies’, see Tribal and Village Rugs –
The Definitive Guide to Design,
Pattern and Motif, London 2004,
pp.74-5, border A72.
22 Trefoil, Guls, Stars & Gardens,
Oakland 1990, pl.XIII = HALI 87,
1996, p.106. Unconnected to the
San Francisco ICOC later the same
year, the ‘Trefoil’ exhibition featured
pieces from the collections of
Gilbert & Hillary Dumas, Jim
Dixon and John Webb Hill.
23 HALI 123, 2002, p.82.
24 A very similar ‘star’ appears in:
the octagons on a 16th century
‘Holbein’ carpet in Berlin,
no.79,110; see Friedrich Spuhler,
Oriental Carpets in the Museum
of Islamic Art, Berlin, Munich
1988, pl.5; in the border of the
Beyshehir Seljuk carpet in the
Mevlana Museum, Konya, see
Aslanapa, op.cit., p.25, pl.11; see
also a rug in the Textile Museum
(TM R34.2.1), in Ralph S. Yohe &
H. McCoy Jones, Turkish Rugs,
Washington 1968, pl.15.
25 Morehouse, op.cit., pl.7,
attributed to west Anatolia, and
Lefevre, London, 25 May 1984, lot
16, attributed to Mujur.
26 HALI 45, 1989, ad.p.11, attributed
to west but almost certainly
east Anatolia, mid-19th century;
Werner Brüggemann & Harald
Böhmer, Rugs of the Peasants
and Nomads of Anatolia, Munich
1983, pl.105, east Anatolia (with a
dotted abrashed field similar to the
present rug, and with a related
border); J.M. Sorkin brochure,
Philadelphia July 1997; Murray L.
Eiland, Jr., Oriental Rugs: A
Comprehensive Guide, Greenwich
CT 1973, p.119, fig.100, an early
20th century quite ‘touristy’
looking Turkish ‘Kazak’ from Kars;
Ministry of Culture & Tourism,
Turkish Handwoven Carpets,
Catalog No.2, Ankara 1988,
no.0184, Maltaya; ibid., Catalog
No.4, no.0384, Elazi˘g.
27 Gerard Paquin, personal correspondence.
He writes: “They are
crudely and variously drawn here,
but in the upper part of the field
they have the dot at the edge of the
ball as Çintamani traditionally do”.
28 Franz Sailer, Textile Fragments,
Salzburg 1988, p.28, Konya, 18th
century = HALI 40, 1988, p.93 =
HALI 49, 1990, p.9; HALI 87,
1996, p.37, Konya, 18th century or
earlier; Eberhart Herrmann, Seltene
Orientteppiche IX, Munich 1987,
no.8, Konya 18th century;
Kirchheim et al., op.cit., pl.116,
Konya, 17th/18th century; Georg
Butterweck et al., Antique
Anatolian Carpets from Austrian
Collections, Vienna 1983, pl.42,
Konya, circa 1800; Wilfried
Stanzer et al., Antique Oriental
Carpets from Austrian Collections,
Vienna 1986, east Anatolia, 19th
century; HALI 71, 1993, p.144,
Konya, 19th century; HALI 137,
2004, p.68, Jon Anderson Collection,
central Anatolia, 19th century;
Georg Butterweck & Dieter Orasch,
Handbook of Anatolian Carpets;
Central Anatolia, Vienna 1986,
pl.67, a panel on a Obruk rug, in
which they suggest that the motif
represents a stylised St Andrew’s
cross.
29 HALI 156, 2008, p.27.
30 Kirchheim et al., pl.141, a fragment
of a 17th/18th century
Konya rug with amulet motifs
which may bear a relationship to
the present motif.
31 The closest parallel is an inner
border on a Manastir prayer rug in
Rainer Kreissl, Gates to Heaven:
Anatolia, Munich 1998, pl.19, with
a blue line on a yellow ground
meandering through various filler
motifs. Kirchheim et al., op.cit.,
pl.141 has a meandering red line
on a yellow ground.
32 Lefevre, London, 6 February
1976, lot 17.
33 Butterweck & Orasch, op,cit.,
pp.114-116, pls.209-217.
34 Jean Lefevre attributed his rug
to Konya, mid-19th century;
Christie’s, London, 13 June 1983,
lot 14 = Christie’s New York, 12
December 2007, lot 31.
35 Helmut Reinisch, Von Bagdad
nach Stamboul, Graz 1983, pl.36 =
HALI 41, 1998, p.101.
36 A related tree-of-life rug of
much later vintage, is attributed to
Mihalıççık by Kurt Zipper &
Claudia Fritsche, Oriental Rugs
Volume 4, Turkish, Woodbridge
1989, p.165, but to Altintas¸ by
Butterweck & Orasch, op.cit.,
pl.224.
37 Ibid., pls.214-5.
38 J. Iten-Maritz, Turkish Carpets,
Tokyo 1977, p.36.
39 Yanni Petsopoulos, Kilims: Flatwoven
Tapestry Rugs, New York
1979, pls.171-2.
40 HALI 4/4, 1982, p.372;
Christie’s, New York, 16 June
2003, lot 103 = HALI 128, 2003,
p.124; Ministry of Culture, op.cit.,
Catalog No.1, 1987, no.0034;
Lefevre, London, 17 February
1984, lot 10.
41 Ölçer et al., op.cit., pl.146; HALI
112, 2000, cover.
42 HALI 153, 2007, p.122.
43 Christie’s, New York, 8
February 1992, lot 35; HALI 70,
1993, p.31; Sotheby’s, London, 19
October 1994, lot 91; Sotheby’s,
New York, 13 December 1996,
lot 54.
44 TIEM no.712; HALI 91, 1997,
cover = Ölçer et al., op.cit., pl.114
= Pinner & Denny, op.cit., p.4, fig.2.
45 Ebertart Herrmann, Seltene Orientteppiche
VI, Munich 1984, pl.15.
46 Joseph V. McMullan, Islamic
Carpets, New York 1965, pl.36.
Also called a ‘Ghirlandaio’ rug
after the depiction of a similar
central motif by the 15th century
artist Domenico Ghirlandaio.
McMullan’s rug has a central
Memling-gül, with ‘Seljuk’ stars in
the corners. Other single
medallion examples lacking the
central ‘Seljuk’ star include:
Eberhart Herrmann, Seltene Orientteppiche
X, Munich 1988, pl.13;
Concaro & Levi, op.cit., pl.27;
William.T. Price, Divine Images
and Magic Carpets, Amarillo 1987,
pl.33; Rippon Boswell,
Wiesbaden, 25 May 1998, lot 137;
Christie’s, New York, 8 February
1992, lot 108 (Meyer-Müller
Collection); Robert De Calatchi,
Oriental Carpets, Rutland VT 1967,
p.12; Alberto Levi, Antique Textile
Art 4, Milan 2004, pl.1. Another
McMullan rug, op.cit.., pl.97, has a
central ‘Solomon’ star and corner
spandrels, as does Rainer Kreissl,
Art as Tradition– Anatolia, Prague
1995, pl.72.
47 Werner Grote-Hasenbalg, Der
Orientteppich: seine Geschiichte
und seine Kultur, Berlin 1922, p.88,
fig.51, a 16th century rug with a
highly stylised central star. Also
Alexander, op.cit., p.315 = Jean
Lefevre, Turkish Carpets, London
1977, no.16; Lefevre, London, 28
September 1973, lot 6; Lefevre,
London, 25 March 1977, lot 31.
48 Belkıs Balpinar & Udo Hirsch,
Carpets of the Vakıflar Museum,
Istanbul, Wesel 1988, pl.30.
49 Jon Thompson, Milestones in
the History of Carpets, Milan 2007,
pl.4 = HALI 152, 2007, p.141.
50 Rippon Boswell, Wiesbaden,
20 November 2004, lot 147.
51 Peter F. Stone Oriental Rug
Lexicon, London 1997, p.199.
52 HALI 91, 1997, p.154 = Sotheby’s
New York, 13 December
1996, lot 36.
53 Morehouse, op.cit., illustrates
two from west Anatolia (nos.41,
42), six from central Anatolia
(no.60, possibly Karapınar; no.64,
Ni˘gde/Gelveri; nos.69-72, Mujur)
and one from east Anatolia
(no.133).
54 A more formally drawn yellowground
Konya rug, attributed to
the mid-19th century, Sotheby’s,
New York on 14 December 2001,
lot 59 and again on 2 December
2003, lot 24. The comparison
cited in the 2003 catalogue as a
“red-ground Konya rug”, while
related by design, is actually a
central Anatolian yastık, advertised
by Thomas Caruso in HALI 98,
p.53. A white-ground rug with
three pairs of saz leaves in the
TIEM (no.310), collected in
Sivrihisar, is of uncertain
attribution: Nazan Ölçer & Walter
B. Denny, Anatolian Carpets.
Masterpieces from the Museum
of Turkish and Islamic Arts
Istanbul, Bern 1999, pl.84, assign
it to central Anatolia, 18th/ 19th
century, while it was dated to the
17th/18th century in HALI 105,
1999, p.95. There is only a slim
chance that it was made in Konya.
A more geometric version of a
similar design was published by
May H. Beattie, ‘Some Rugs of
the Konya Region’, Oriental Art,
Spring 1976, p.71, fig.20.
55 Central Anatolian ‘coupledcolumn’
prayer rugs with this
border include: Balpinar & Hirsch,
op.cit., pl. 70 (Konya), Ministry of
Culture, op.cit., Catalog no.1, 1987,
no.0060 and Catalog no.5, 1995,
no.0572 (both Konya); a Konya-
Ladik in Peter Bausback, Alte und
Antike Orientalische Knüpfkunst,
Mannheim 1982, p.11; and a Karapınar
on the cover of Butterweck
& Orasch, op.cit. An earlier, more
refined version of the border can
be seen on the Davanzati column
Ladik, sold by Lefevre, London, on
27 April 1979, lot 21, and on the
famous Ballard Ottoman prayer
rug, in Richard Ettinghausen &
Maurice Dimand, Prayer Rugs,
Washington DC 1974, pl.XXI.
56. Brüggemann & Böhmer,
op.cit., p.106, flg.128 a, b, c.
57 Petsopoulos, op.cit., pl.217.
58 Alan Marcuson et al., Kilims –
The Traditional Tapestries of
Turkey, Dublin 1979, no.10,
described as a “9-border prayer
kilim – southeast Anatolia”.
59 Murray L. Eiland Jr., Oriental
Rugs from Paciflc Collections, San
Francisco 1990, p.57, pl.28.
60 Walter B. Denny, The Classical
Tradition in Anatolian Carpets,
Washington 2002, pl.43.
61 Finarte, Milan, 9 November
2005, lot 186, dated to the 16th/
17th century (1'10" x 2'5").
62 James M. Keshishian, Inscribed
Armenian Rugs of Yesteryear,
Washington DC 1994, pl.A153;
Murray L. Eiland Jr.,
Passages–Celebrating the Rites of
Passage in Inscribed Armenian
Rugs, San Francisco 2002, pl.40.
63 Volkmar Gantzhorn, The Christian
Oriental Carpet, Cologne 1991,
p.401, no.537.
64 Concaro & Levi, op.cit., pl.83;
Kirchheim et al., op.cit., pls.116,
151.
65 Nagel, Stuttgart, 5 November
2002, lot 10; Dennis R. Dodds,
Philadelphia, a zig-zag striped
yatak posted on cloudband.com
on 9 January 2003.
66 Rippon Boswell, Wiesbaden,
16 November 2002, lot 14, a
yellow-ground Çal carpet with an
all-over pattern of mosque lamps;
Bergama and Dazkırı medallion
carpets, e.g. Maurice S. Dimand,
The Ballard Collection of Oriental
Rugs in the City Art Museum, St
Louis, St Louis 1935, pl.XXX, and
Rippon Boswell, Wiesbaden, 16
November 1996, lot 169.
67 Numerous examples include:
Bergama, Ministry of Culture,
op.cit., Catalog No.1, 1987,
no.0043; Alexander, op.cit., p.127;
a ‘Bellini’ rug in Eberhart
Herrmann, Asiatische Teppich und
Textilkunst 4, Munich 1992, pl.4; a
saf at the TIEM, in Gantzhorn,
op.cit., p.505; Konya, Yohe &
Jones, op.cit., p.24; E. Herrmann,
Seltene Orientteppiche II, Munich
1979, pl.14. The most realistic
depictions of mosque lamps
appear in a 16th century Ottoman
rug, Denny 2002, op.cit., pl.44,
and in safs, Ölçer & Denny,
op.cit., pls.37-9.
68 J.M.Rogers & Hülye Tezcan,
The Topkapı Saray Museum,
Carpets, London 1987, pl.4; HALI
39, 1988, p.26 (55), HALI 58,
1991, p.86.
69 I am grateful to Patrick Weiler
who visited Ankara after ICOC XI
in 2007 and posted his photographs
of the Vakıflar rugs on
turkotek.com.
70 Lefevre, London, 6 February
1976, lot 28, mid-19th century
(3’3” x 5’4”).
71 Mesciulam & Belleri, op.cit.,
pl.18; Rippon Boswell,
Wiesbaden, 12 November 1994,
lot 25; Brunk Auctions, Asheville
NC, 31 May 2003, lot 63;
Sotheby’s, New York, 17
December 1999, lot 132.
72 Morehouse, op.cit., pl.101 (main
border), pls 102-4 (guard borders).
73 Grogan, Dedham MA, 22 April
2006, lot 115.
74 Skinner, Bolton, 17 September
1994, lot 143.
75 Balpinar & Hirsch, op.cit., pl.66,
a central Anatolian ‘shield’ carpet;
Rippon Boswell, Wiesbaden, 11
November 1993, lot 128; one half
of the motif is used in the borders
of some Karapınar rugs: Rippon
Boswell, Wiesbaden, 20 May 1995,
lot 79A = HALI 61, 1992, p.173 =
Sotheby’s, London, 16 October
2002, lot 45; Christie’s, London, 1
May 2003, lot 158.
76 HALI 109, 2000, p.106, fig.4, a
Kazak rug in the Dixon Collection;
Balpinar & Hirsch, op.cit., pl.81, an
18th century south Caucasian rug.
77 Tezcan & Okumura, op.cit.,
pl.65, Simsek Collection.
78 Ralph Kaffel, ‘Heart and Soul –
The Yellow-Ground Rugs of
Konya’, HALI 128, 2003. pp.90-8.
79 National Museum, Stockholm,
no.NM 40/1936, 6" x 9". See Carl
Johann Lamm, Carpet Fragments,
The Marby Rug and some Fragments
of Carpets found in Egypt,
Stockholm 1985, pl.23 and p.30.
80 McMullan, op.cit., p.338,
pl.117.
81 Tezcan & Okumura, op.cit.,
p.145, no.6.
82 Raymond Benardout, Woven
Stars. Rugs and Textiles from
Southern Californian Collections,
Los Angeles 1996, p.74, pl.85. Its
dimensions are given as 2'2"x
2'7", but it appears to be smaller
than the present piece.
83 E.g. Kirchheim et al., op.cit.,
pl.160, a 17th century central
Anatolian village rug.
84 Rippon Boswell, Wiesbaden,
20 November 2004, lot 136.
85 Morehouse, op.cit., pl.43.
86 Ölçer & Denny, op.cit., pl.90.
87 Ibid., pl.101 and p.61.
88 Walter B. Denny et al.,
Weaving Heritage of Anatolia 2,
Istanbul 2007, p.170, pl.90.
89 Ministry Of Culture, op.cit.,
Catalog No.4, 1990, no.0313.
90 HALI 58,1991, p.100; Kirchheim
et al., op.cit., pl.189.
91 Stanzer et al., op.cit., pl.11;
Sotheby’s New York, 14
December 2001, lot 50; Nathaniel
Harris, Rugs and Carpets of the
Orient, London 1977, p.61; HALI
114, 2001, p.61; Eberhart
Herrmann, Seltene Orientteppiche
III, Munich 1980, pl.1; HALI 1/3,
1978, p.275, flg.6; Emil
Schmutzler, Altorientalische Teppiche
in Siebenbürgen, Leipzig
1933, pl.37; Angela Völker, Die
Orientalischen Knüpfteppiche im
MAK, Vienna 2001, pl.28, and a
much-published Ushak in the TIEM,
Denny et al., op.cit., pl.93 = Ölçer
et al., op.cit., pl.144 = Ölçer &
Denny, op.cit., pl.133 = Ministry
of Culture, op.cit., Catalog No.5,
1995, no.0560 = HALI 151, 2007,
p.175.
92 Stefano Ionescu, Antique
Anatolian Rugs in Transylvania,
Rome 2005, pls 149-52, 154-6,
158, 160-2, 164-6, 168-73, 175-6.
ANATOLIAN RUGS
HALI ISSUE 157 81