More Oriental Rug Notes by Barry O'Connell

Saturday at Keshishian's An Old Yastik 25th of February 2006

Saturday at Keshishian's

Business was good today at Mark Keshishian and Sons. A nice couple with three young boys were in and picked out 3 antique Sarouk rugs and a very old Lavar Kerman Rug. The Lavar Kerman was the oldest one I have seen. I wish I had a little while to examine it but it was too late.

This is the first of three rugs we photographed today. I wanted to get this one posted first since Harold was teasing me about when I would get around to posting this. I will be posting another Yastik and and absolutely beautiful animal border Caucasian rug soon.

 Age was one of the things Harold and I were talking about. Take for instance the Bergama area Yastik to the right. Harold dates this one to third Quarter 19th century or earlier. He points out quiet rightly that they did not start weaving Yastiks in the period from 1850 to 1875. They started much earlier. We know that the Ottoman court Yastiks date bake to at least the 16th century. So we we look at Yastiks like this Bergama we have to account for the formative period in which this type and style came to be. So a Yastik like this could be 50 to 100 years earlier.

I asked Harold what was the oldest Yastik that he has seen. He said excluding the velvet Ottoman court Yastiks the oldest that he has seen dates to about 1850. He also says that all the old ones had a utilitarian purpose. He said that he happens to own the oldest that he has seen and he will try to remember to bring it in to show me.

The main motif of this yastik appears in The famous Turkmen Rug From the Ulu Mosque in Divrigi that figured so prominiently in Dr. JonThompson's central argument in the 1980 classic Turkmen. Interestingly enough Harold Keshishian was instrumental in picking Thompson to co-write Turkmen and Harold also designed the dust jacket of that landmark book.

Thanks to Ed Krayer I put together Notes on Anatolian Gelveri Rugs based on the informationj that Ed supplied.

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