The post regards a specific and rather unique pattern in an Anatolian kilim owned by a Turkish kilim collector. The related picture is accompanied by a similar kilim on sale in an Internet renowned site for textiles. Below the two.
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| North eastern Anatolian kilim, 19th, private collection |
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| North eastern Anatolian kilim, 19th |
Here I refer the valuable opinion of the kilim expert Michael Bischof on the attribution of this item:
" There are two suspects for the provenance: the area north of Sebinkarahisar towards Ordu (Avsar something...) or NE Anatolia, but not Erzurum, the region around Kagızman. - A Turkoman adaption of a non-tribal design".
The only part on which I feel to be apt to judge and agree with, because of enexperience of so sharp geographical and ethnographic questions, is the non-tribal nature of this pattern. Turkoman tribes are widely scattered all over the Anatolian territory, not all of them leading a full nomadic life, but rather, clinging more or less to their traditions.
Generically, semi nomadic tribes can be said more often than not to have come in contact with urban settings, that is market, mosque and caravanserai.
Eberardt Herrmann owned one such type of kilim and parallelled its design to the typical Turkoman Chodor gul pattern. Below two exemplars.
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| photo credits Hali Autumn 1982 |
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| Chodor main carpet, early 19th, Central Asia, published Wie Blumen in der Wuste 1993 |
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| Chodor main carpet fragment, Central Asia, Hoffmeister collection, photo courtesy tcoletribalrugs.com |
Yet, the idea of finding a closer reference brought to mind a unique Ottoman Anatolian fragment of a village kilim likely inspired to Ottoman court/urban design.
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| Ottoman Anatolian kilim fragment, late 17th, western Anatolia, from Rupea formerly Transylvania, published Ionescu 2006 |
Definitely, there is a commonality of pattern between the Central Asian Chodor design and the Anatolian kilim staggered motif. Details may vary, namely the medallion shape, its appendages, the inscribed decoration.
The shape of the medallion may change from elongate to flattened form, the profile from lobed to stepped.
And in fact, an earlier pattern may be submitted to find a connection between the Ottoman court designs, the Anatolian kilim and the Central Asian Chodor format. Such pattern belongs with the Timurid art developed during the late 14th throughout the 15th century. It originated at the court of Tamerlane in Samarkanda, Central Asia, and spread to all the cultured world of the period. The artistic language elaborated by the main karkhaneh (royal laboratories) took advantage from the best artists and artisans recruited by Timur and his descendants from all the vast conquered empire creating a real International Style to be adopted and adapted by various courts in a strenuous challenge for artistic primacy (Timur: The Princely Vision).
One specific Timurid exemplar, probably woven in Greater Iran, seems a fitting source for the Chodor design.
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| Timurid damask (khema), 15th, Greater Iran, LACMA |
As to the stepped profile, like the one in the kilim, it may be a final stage of a geometrical rendition of the lobed shape. Otherwise, a different model may be submitted for the Anatolian, although admittedly farther.
The ragged florons encrusted with elegant Karamemi silhouettes woven in urban laboratories diffused also in period embroideries and kilims with a sort of stylised profile.
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| Ottoman silk and metal thread velvet panel, 17th |
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| Ottoman silk on linen embroidery, 17th, the McCoy Jones collection |
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| Ottoman kilim, 16th-17th, the Vakiflar Museum Istanbul |
Florons and medallions can easily superimpose to one another in a distant weaving mind.
As to appendages, the upper and lower medallion apex may or may not be graced by a sprouting device. In the urban context it usually adheres to the typical medallion finial, a trilobite form variously called lotus flower, palmette, bud In villagy weavings it roughly resembles two ram's horns or an arrow-head.
The stunning detail of the Foy-Casper 'Karapinar' carpet well illustrates this original design.
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| The Foy-Casper 'Karapinar' carpet, 16th, Zaleski Collection |
This carpet held in the Vakiflar shows the arrow-head attached to a hooked octagon.
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| Anatolian carpet, 16th-17th, Vakiflar Museum Istanbul |
The bud type is, instead, typically seen in the diverse Holbein patterns punctuating the exterior medallion profile like in this early exemplar.
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| Small Pattern Holbein carpet, fragment, 15th-16th, West Anatalia, Mevlana Konya Ethnographic Museum, photocredits azerbaijanrugs.com |
Not strange if in successive simplifications the bud lost the central gem, two leaflets its reduction. What more similar to the two horns of the ram, a mythical animal not only for the Turkic stock but for many ancient mythologies in the Near East and Asia? This unique Karaman carpet seemingly verifies the appropriation.
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| Medallion carpet, Karaman, 17th-18th, TIEM Museum Istanbul |
As to the inscribed decoration of the kilim at issue, some parallels leads to suggest the parallel with the courtly Karamemi Four-Flowers Style.
Developed at the Istanbul royal nakkashaneh (laboratory), it was inspired to a realistic and elegant floral iconography to which also Italian Renaissance style contributed. Let us recall the tight relations 15th century Ottoman polities had with Venice and other Italian centres. Giovanni Bellini was hosted for a while at the Osmali court.
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| Karamemi painted folio with the Four Flowers style, mid 16th, Top Kapi. |
Although the Karamemi Style was soon mixed with another popular style of the period, the Saz Style, the typical four flowers are often well recognisable: carnation, hyacinth, tulip and rose.
These flowers appear in court silk velvets, urban and provincial embroideries and carpets.
The Cairene-Ottoman prayer rug fragment in the Cleveland Museum shows a mixed use of Saz and Karamemi Style in the border ornamentation.
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| The Cleveland Cairene-Ottoman fragment, II half 16th |
Whereas court patterns inspired a large family of Anatolian carpets, the so called Transylvanian, only some of them display the Karamemi lyric. Below carnation, hyacinth and rosette dramatically contribute to the central floron/medallion in the actual court tradition
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| Double niche carpet, western Anatolia 17th, Moshe Tabibnia photocredits |
Karamemi flowers were in a certain favour in Central Anatolia, namely in the so called 'Karapinar' family. Otherwise, in greater part of Ottoman Anatolian carpets the medallion is inscribed with an quadripartite device sourcing from a 15th/16th closed palmette arabesque, the centre governed by a four directional motif.
A 'Karapinar' 17th century pattern displays a type of decoration not so far from the one in the kilim at issue. The pomegranate shows as a delicious addition.
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| 'Karapinar' fragmented carpet, 16th/17th, Vakiflar Museum Istanbul |
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| 'Karapinar' carpet, 17th, the Wher Collection |
Curiously enough, a Baluch carpet surfaced in the meantime with a very similar pattern. It appears to have a multiracial genetics. The four appendages recall Turkmen guls, the staggered medallion pattern echoes the Anatolian/Central Asian format, the ragged profile the kilim version of an Ottoman florons., a floral decoration points to a universal feature. All these characteristics are in the author's eye, obviously.
Is it by chance that they appear in a Baluch rug, as the Baluch formats are famed for a most inclusive nature, hosting designs from nearly all the provenaces in the Rug Belt?
So the question arises, is there hidden a shared language?
Without entering the useless technical distinctions between pure linguistics and a visual 'language', there seem to exist two expressive tools in this pattern: a medallion and a format. Single details typify it: the profile course, the appendage form, the inscribed decoration. In the three cases (Anatolian kilim, Chodor carpet and Baluch) said details create as many unique types.
How design and details are composed in the space and how they relate with one another evokes the syntactical mode of a language; both have the same goal to express content. No syntax no meaning. Design and colour the way of carpets.
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| Baluch medallion carpet, 19th, Bell collection |
