The Hecksher & Co.

Chapter I - The Hecksher

1- The Hecksher palmette rug, 18th-19th

The Hecksher 'palmette rug', believed by the common wisdom to be an 18th century weaving attributed to the vast Khorasan region adjacent to the preset day Turkmenistan (West Turkestan), remains a mistery.

While not assuming the mystery can be resolved, some  findings on the subject can delineate influence from the  Azerbaijan/Caucasian weaving style as well an unexpected distinctive Turkmen accent. Finally, the comparisons do help disclosing its strong unique character.

The format - The format is consistent with Turkmen main carpets and Caucasian palmette rugs.

3 -The Burns palmette rug, Caucasus, 18th

2 - Salor main carpet, 18th

5 - The Wher Yomut main carpet, 18th-19th

The border - The main trefoil border is usual in both period Azerbaijan and Khorasan pieces; the  'S' guard is again seen in Azerbaijan and Yomut carpets.

4 - The Keir palmette rug, Caucasus, 18th

The field - The variety of the designs is apparent in the Caucasian rugs of the Khanates period ( 1735 - 1805), where a plethora of Persianate floral motifs were going to settle in the Transitional, Floral and Sunburst type.

Three main motifs along with some minor garnish the red field.

The first motif - The so called lotus open palmette neatly displays its origin, being referred to a specific Caucasian group decorated with this allover design (plate 8). Yet, the fan shaped calyx echoes some Turkmen floral types. The style displayed in the flower (plate 6) immediately stresses a tough rendition of the model.

 6 -Hecksher lotus open palmette

7 - Caucasian lotus open palmette, detail

8 - Caucasian lotus open  palmette rug, 18th

The second motif - Its high stylisation does not completely disguise a double palmette compound originated from the Safavid decorative pool (plate 9). Symmetrical palmettes are, in fact, often depicted in the Azerbaijan rugs (plate 10), in some of which a close inspection uncovers the source of the characteristic Hecksher motif (plate 11, fig. A). Curiously enough, the same rugs show the lotus open palmette (plate 11, fig. B), as well sourced from the Safavid floral vocabulary (plate 12). The double palmette will continue to be featured in some 19th century Turkmen and Kurdish rugs of Northeastern Persia.

9 - Karabak,  Isfahan inspired palmette rug, late 18th

8 - Hecksher double palmette

10 - The Keshishian sickle leaf rug, vase technique, Karabak, 17th-18th

12 - Kirman, vase carpet, 17th, lotus open palmette

11 - Palmette rug, Shirvan Khanate, late 18th

13 - Eagle Group torba, aksu gul, 19th

The third motif - Despite seemingly similar to the aksu gul found in a type of the Eagle Group torba, it will be better discussed in the next chapter.

12 - Hecksher

Minor guls - Not well tipified, they loosely adhere to a generic Turkmen tradition. Two of them seem to take from the main and minor Salor guls, though losing the scale. The one and only stepped diamond inscribed with a cross design is seen in the inner decoration of theYomut carpet's guls discussed in the next chapter.

(Useful here to remind that Yomut, Salor and other Turkmen tribes were inhabiting the area from the Khorasan to the Amu Darya river in the 18th century).

Hecksher minor gul 1

Hecksher minor gul 2

Salor main carpet, detail, 18th

Stepped diamond

                        





Chapter II - The Ballard

14 - The Ballard Yomut main carpet, 18th

A carpet 'out of the box', the Hecksher is related to another famous atypical Yomut main carpet, the Ballard.

Unlike the previous, this rug bears the Yomut stigmas in the technical features and  in two designs, the c-gul and the meandering palmette border. Cut and sewn longitudinally through the middle, it veils only part of the central axis motifs.

Despite the Yomut membership, again much of Persianate/Caucasian influence can be detected in the pattern. Very far from the calm and neat order typical of the early Turkmen main carpets, it displays a kind of dramatic prosody by means of big scale devices  and sudden spots of light. Big designs closely assembled with no pause in between are again typical  of some Khanates rugs.

The Ballard shares with the Hecksher two designs of Caucasian inspiration, both unfortunately  cut and sewn - the double palmette and the lotus open palmette. The latter, though missing the central calyx, is apparent by the open petals almost sewn together (plate 15, fig A).

15 - The Ballard rug, detail

With the exception of the c-gul, two more main devices are featured in the field.

The first - It is represented by two mirrored palmettes of Persianate inspiration inscribed in a serrated black halo adhering to the petals profile.

16 - The Ballard mirroring palmettes

The second - It is an original complex gul  whose source is uncertain, yet it seems logical to look for it in the Caucasian decorative pool from where other elements of these two rugs have been derived. In this case one type of octagonal compound can be considered for its characteristic decorative protrusions (plate 18).  The early exemplars, as the Ballard and the Wher are, use the protrusions as decorative elements, while they usually become structural part of the device, as a simplified version in the Wher rug indicates (plate 20).

17 - The Ballard complex gul

18 - Early Karabak floral carpet, mid 18th

19 - The Wher Yomut main carpet, complex gul

20 - The Wher Yomut main carpet, simplified gul

At this point we once more introduce the Hecksher third motif for it seems a blend of the aksu and the Wher simplified gul. Again a tough design. 

Since research is a working progress, I add today (april, 4, 2015) an interesting Yomut torba, esteemed ca. 1800, whose guls rather curiously recall again the Hecksher motif, both for shape and design style. A developed form can be seen in the minor gul, the so called 'Erre' gul, of many yomut torba of the 19th century.

Yomut torba, ca. 1800

Yomut chuval, erre gul, 1860 ca.

The Ballard two minor guls - Hard to decipher because of the damage to the carpet, one of them seems to match the Wher minor gul (plate 20), the other seemingly being a simple device. 

21 - The Ballard minor gul

                                                                        

Chapter III - The Wher

22 - The Wher Yomut main carpet, 18th-19th

So far the Wher Yomut main carpet appears to be a valuable reference for our arguments, and a closer inspection can unveil some more information.

From a distance two  guls of the so called Kepse type prove to have a progressive size like matching a palmette form much similar to the Ballard type. Furthermore, the red symmetrical protrusions seem to repeat the Ballard petals inside the black halo. In this perspective the latter likely anticipates the castellated profile of the Kepse gul. Generously, the Wher exemplar gives us as the hint for the sourcing model as the istance of its symmetrical adjustment  (plate 25). Corroborating this hypothesis, one Yomut exemplar shows two conjoint kepse guls much recalling the arrangement of two conjoint palmettes in line with the Persianate tradition (plate 26).

23 - Wher mirroring kepse gul

24 - Ballard mirroring palmettes

25 - Wher symmetrical kepse gul

Rugkazbah image

26 - Yomut multigul rug

detail, conjoint kepse gul

The floral origin of the Kepse and other two guls is consistent with the apparent floral decoration of the elem. Probably the main part of the carpet, the field, required a special aesthetic able to convey a proper symbology, while the elem accepted a more realistic rendition. The  Wher curled leaf border, as well as the meandering palmette seen in the Ballard and other Yomut main carpets, would confirm a coherent floral inspiration for this type of weavings, not irrelevant also in other Turkmen types.

28 - Wher floral elem

29 - Tekke engsi floral elem

                                                                 

Although these pedestrian comparisons do not achieve anything conclusive on the Hecksher subject, they stress, if ever needed,  the influential presence of Caucasian/Persianate models in some western Turkmen weavings by means of the cosmopolitan trade centres of the Amu Darya region. In particular, the Azerbaijan Khanates significantly traded with it via the Northern Persian region of Gorgan in the second half of the 18th century. The Gorgan and Atrak regions were inhabited since the 17th century also by the Turkic Goklan tribes, which were too responsible for weavings at times put close to the Salors, at times to the Yomuts. They seemingly wove a group of rugs with the allover double palmette design in the 19th century. That's why the Hecksher has been attributed also to the Goklans.


The Persian influence is reportedly surmised by the account of the Polish Jesuit Father Krusinski who lived in Persia from 1704 to 1729: He mentioned Astarabad, in today Gorgan, a site of a Shah Abbas laboratory. Carpets and other fabrics were to be made in its own manner with a strong Persian urban influence as in the other royal laboratories established in Karabak, Shirvan and Gilan. (See Pinner and Eiland, The Wiedersperger Collection, De Young Museum, 1999). Yet, each example got a unique accent..
Who were the weavers in these laboratories, were 'tribal' individuals employed to work on commission?

However, the same comparisons seem underlining different sources for the Ballard and the Hecksher exemplars. The dramatic lexicon and rhythm of the Ballard, does appear more related to the Caucasian Transitional rugs, while the Hecksher appears to take more from the Floral group with ordered field arrangements.

The tough rendition  and variety of the sourcing models did not prevent the skillful weaver from creating a cohesive design imbued with a strong identity. Not an ordinary collection of random motifs, it has a logical disposition arranged by alternate vertical rows. They are provided with an ascending direction by means of their changing scale and colour; balanced colours and spots of white are apparent in the first half of the field and decrease in the upper section.
The strong styles featured in this rug, bold and graphic, continue to defy and pique the curiosity of all those who love these weavings.

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Bibliographic references
An Enigmatic Main Carpet: the ex-Ballard MC, http://rugkazbah.com/boards/records.php?id=2358&refnum=2358
Carpets from Turkmenistan- Goklan,  in http://weavingartmuseum.org/carpets/plate7.html.
Carpets from Turkmenistan - Yomut, in http://weavingartmuseum.org/carpets/plate2.html.
Eagle Group Primer, Rugtracker, http://www.rugtracker.com/2013/03/eagle-group-primer.html
Enciclopaedia Iranica, Central Asia: Economy from the Timurids until the 18th century, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/central-asia-xi.
Jourdan, U., Oriental Rugs: Volume 5 - Turkoman, 1996
Mackie, L., and Thompson,J., Turkmen. Tribal Carpets and Traditions,  1980.
Moshkova, V.G., Carpets of the Peoples of Central Asia (1970), in Oriental Rug Review, Vol. III, No. 1 through Vol. IV, No. 9.
Murray, E., Origin of the Turkoman Guls, Oriental Rug Review, 1982.
O'Bannon, G., et al.,Vanishing Jewels: Central Asian Tribal Weavings, 1990.
Pinner, R., and Eiland, M.,Between the Black Desert and the Red. Turkmen Carpets from The Wiedersperg Collection, 1999.
Poullada, P., Kizilbash from Khorasan?, Hali 156.
Reuben, D., Guls and Gols II, Exhibition of of Turkmen and related Carpets from the 17th to the 19th Century,2001.
Sienknecht, H., A Turkic Heritage, The Development of Ornament on Yomut C-Gl Carpets, Hali 47.
Thomson, J., Turkman, 1980.
Wright, R., Carpets in Azerbaijan, http://www.richardewright.com/0409_CarpetsInAzerbaijan.html;
Wrigh, R., Turkmen Carpets and Central Asian Art, http://www.richardewright.com/0612TurkmenCarpets_CentralAsianArt/index.htmlArt.
Yetkin, S., Early Caucasian Carpets in Turkey, Vol. I,II, 1978.
Yomut, Tribe without a Gul, Rugtracker, http://www.rugtracker.com/2014/09/yomutgol-without-tribe.html.

The Ashtapada Carpet and a Cosmopolitan Society.

While researching the murky subject of the Timurid carpets, I came across what was in the 1990s claimed to be one such specimen. It seemed to fall within  the taxonomy of a group of Timurid carpets developed by Amy Briggs. The attribution was chiefly based on the presence of the kufesque border and the allover geometric-like design.

Finally it received a thorough analysis by Michael Franses, a radiocarbon test adding a scientific dating with mean range of  early 15th- early 17th.

While its pattern was meticulously compared with the International Style as represented in 15th century Spanish, Anatolian, Syrian and Persian exemplars, essential  technical facts proved it to be an Indian rug. Stylistic and historical details, in turn, suggested an origin in the Bahmid Sultanate of the Deccan, woven during  the reign of Ahmad Shahi Wali  (1422-1436).

Two designs gained much of our interest, the octagonal medallion and the gaming board above it.

The first belongs to an early Anatolian tradition, descending from the Domes and  Squinches design of the 14th century through the Large Pattern Holbeins of the 15th-16th century.
The second, in turn, gives witness to an ancient Hindu tradition, having been recognized as a Vedic version of the chess game, called ashtapada. While having disappeared in the 10th century, it survived in the South of India till the end of the 16th.

1 - Medallion silk rug, Deccan, 15th (?)

2 - Octagonal medallion and chess board

4 - 'Domes and Squinches' rug, Anatolia, 14th 

3 - Large Pattern Holbein, 15th-16th

Curiously enough, the origin for the third element - the field motif - appears to have not yet been investigated. It was, in fact, loosely related to period Spanish armorial designs and early Chinese silks. The design is composed by a repeat 'S' ending with an inverted leaf/flower.
Some further investigation offers  interesting clues for a new attribution, prompting  a possibly more proper historical context for this piece.

Three may be the plausible sources - the Persian/Timurid art, the Jain and the Mughal, all of which share a floral meandering vine in their vocabularies.

5 - Ashtapada field design

The first source was under the eyes of the weavers, being depicted in the Timurid  inspired royal building of Bidar, the Bahmid capital. 

6 - Fort Bidar, Timurid inspired decoration, floral vine, 15th-16th

The second source was widely diffused  in the Gujarat, north of Deccan, and Vijayanagar, south of it. Although likely borrowed from foreign models, it appears translated and definitely appropriated by a specific local style.

In the Gujarat Jain painting of the 14th and 15th century the motif is used both as a floral meander framing sacred scenes and a cut stem ending with an inverted flower decorating fine clothing.

7 - Kalpasutra manuscript, late 14th, detail of the divan design

8 - Jain text, Gujarat, 1411

9 - Jain manuscript, cover, 16th

.
The inverted stem appears  also as architectural finials or depicting plants.

10 - Wall painting, Ajanta Caves, Jain style, 16th (?)

A similar usage of  small repeat floral designs has been outlined by John Guy in the Vijayanagar block-painted clothes. He attested as well to the weavers' skill with creating new motifs from the given one. Interestingly enough, this very fact falls also within the taxonomy Steven Cohen tentatively proposed, creating a corpus of Deccani rugs.

Eventually, the same meander commonly performs in the Deccan paintings from the early 17th century gracing clothes (plate 11) and rugs (plate 12).

11 - Rumal, painted cotton, Golconda, 1640-50

12 - Deccani painting, 18th

A crucial fact for an attribution to a local decorative vocabulary appears to be a design found in a traditional artifact from Bidar, the bidriware. Supposed to have been originated during the early Bahmid reign, this inlay metal work soon became a typical manufacture of the Deccan. Unluckily, the earliest extant bidriwares date to the mid 17th century.

Meandering vines are among the most common designs, often seen with Mughal inspired flowers.

13 -  Bidriware, hookah base,  late17th

14 - Bidriware, dish, 17th, second half

As seen in plate 13 and 14 the flower has lost its 'local/Hindu' look (see plate 7) in favour of a more realistic shape surely influenced by Mughal models, where the floral meandering vine was one of the traditional border design too.

15 - Mughal niche rug, 17th

In this perspective the Ashatapada motif can be plausibly claimed to be part of a Deccan decorative style as a result of different influences (Persian, Hindu and Mughal). The classical 15th century aesthetic seen in the border and medallion harmoniously works with this distinctive feature.

The realistic style of the flower with five petals suggests  a later dating - possibly the turn of the 17th century -  when an already ripe Mughal style could have been seen at the Deccan courts. Two paintings made by the same artist working for both the Mughal and the Bijapur Sultan attest to the connection between the two courts and the circulation of models  (plate 16, 17). 

The bidriware design as well matches this period.

17 -  Ibrahim Adil Shah, Farruk Begh, 1590-95

16 - Babur, Farruk Begh, 1589

At this time the Bahmid reign was already dissolved. In the end  of the 15th century the locals finally rebelled against the absolutist Persian imprint of culture and society imposed by the court. 

The reign split into Sultanates, one of the richest and flourishing being Bijapur, whose cultural peak was achieved during Ibrahim Adil Shah II's reign (1580-1627). Inspired patron of arts, close adept to Hindu religion and customs, the Adilshahi dynasty wanted to be recorded in the official chronicle as direct descendant of the Ottoman dynasty, in contrast to the Bahmid habits. Whether true or not is of no importance, yet the symbolic meaning is.

The Ottoman connection with Deccan dates to the 15th century and was certainly growing during the 'Ottoman Age of Exploration' (1513 - 1589). Ottomans had great influence on Bijapur's wealth serving as architects, engineers, soldiers, administrators, noblemen, generals, governors and merchants. It is no wonder Turkish art entered in the cosmopolitan culture of the day.

18 - Ottoman explorations in the 16th

In such historical context the Ashtapada rug seems indeed to highlight two elements of the new Adilshahi cultural program. First, the reassessment of the Hindu tradition, as attested by the chess board and the 'bidri-type' decoration; second, a homage to the Ottoman world via the Holbein medallion. The kufesque border, although typical of the Persian/Timurid rugs of the 14th and 15th century, is as well the distinguishing frame of  some Turkish carpets in the 15th and 16th century  among which is the Large Pattern Holbein type.

Moreover, the gorgeous palette is consistent with the Bijapur opulent painting  - the alternating colours in the field create a chromatic vibration throughout the carpet (comparable to the chromatic sensitivity in the cloth, plate 19), while the gold and blue kufesque border recalls the lavish miniature frames.

19 - Ibrahim Adil Shah, Bijapur, 1595 (detail of the cloth)

Impossible to know  who was the owner of the rug, we like to imagine him in the same way as the Mughal ruler Jahangir sitting  on a Timurid carpet, appropriate only for him due to his noble lineage.

20 - Jahangir in audience, Mughal  painting, 1605-6

                                                                 
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The rare Turkish inspired rugs of the Deccan should be viewed within the context of the cosmopolitan culture and society to which the Turkish ethnic group greatly contributed.
These rugs are seemingly reminiscent of the original inflections of the sourcing models, at times well disguised by the local design pool. One good instance is the silk medallion rug (21) where the weaver was apparently influenced by original Ushak patterns, but rearranged in the local aesthetic canons.

21 - The Frauenknecht Indian fragment, Holbein type, 16th (?)

22 - Small medallion silk rug, Deccan, 18th

23 -  Small medallionrug, detail

24 - Small medallion Ushak, detail, late 16th

54 - Ushak variant, 15th-16th

26 - Ushak variant, late 16th

                                         

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Image credits

Hali, 167, 2011; The Louvre Museum, Paris; The David Collection, Copenhagen; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York;  The Museum of Islamic Art, Doha; The Vakiflar Museum, Istanbul; The Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Geknupfte Kunst - Teppiche des Museums fur Islamische Kunst, Berlin; Walker, D., Flower Underfoot,1997; The Peaceful Liberators of India, Thames and Hudson, 1994; The Sultans of the South-Arts of India's Deccan Courts, 1323-1687, The Metropolitan, Symposia, 2011; The Christie's Sales.

Bibliographic references

Briggs, A., Timurid Carpets, Ars Islamica 1940, 1946.

Cary Welch, S.,India: Art and Culture, 1300-1900, The Metropolitan Museum of art, 1985.

Casale, G., The Ottoman Age of Exploration, 2010.

Cohen, S., Deccani Carpets: Creating a Group in Sultan of the South....

Eaton, Richard M.  A social and historical Introduction to the Deccan in Sultans of the South.... 

Eskenazi, J., The Conoisseur's choice: the Vakiflar domes and squinches carpet, in Hali 8, iv/32, 1986.

Farooqui, S. A., A Comprehensive History of Medieval India: From Twelfth to the Mid-Eighteenth Century, Dorling Kindersley, 2011.

Fiorentino, F., I tappeti timuridi - dalle orde mongole ai tappeti miniati, Ghereh No. 51.
Franses, M., Ashtapada, Hali 167, 2011.
Guy, J., One Thing Leads to Another in Interwoven Globe, The Metropolitan, 2013.

Lentz T. and Lowry G., Timur and the Princely Vision. Persian Art and Culture in the Fifteenth Century, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1989.

Levi, A., Architectural Motifs in Early Turkish Rugs - Domes and Squinches, OCTS, Volume 5, Part 1.

Lewis, B., From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East, 2013.
Sultan of the South. Arts of India's Deccan Courts, 1323-1687, The Metropolitan, Symposia, 2011.

The Peaceful Liberators: Jain Art of India, Thames and Hudson, 1994.

Thompson,J., Silk, XIII to XVIII Centuries, Treasures from the Islamic Museum of Qatar, 2004, pp. 88-89, National Council of Culture, Arts and Heritage, Doha.

Varija R. Bolar, International Journal of Social Sciences and Humanity Studies, Turks in Karnataka,  International Journal of Social Sciences and Humanity Studies, Vol 4-online. 

Walker, D., Flowers Underfoot, 1997.