Turkish Rugs the O'Connell Guide

So Close and Yet ... : A Yastik Adventure by R. John Howe

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My wife, Jo Ann, used to breed and show collies. Nowadays, living in the city, she has a Shetland Sheepdog and collects collie memorabilia. A couple weeks ago I saw an ad announcing the auction in New Jersey of the artifacts of a famous American collie breeder and exhibitor. So we went (I had noticed that there were also to be a few oriental rugs offered.) At the auction there was a yastik that seemed to me to have good color and so I bid and got it for almost nothing (it did, after all, have glue all over the back).

When we got home my wife said, "Aren't you going to research your rug?" So I hunted up my copy of Brian Morehouse's recent book "Yastiks," published at the time of the last ICOC. I looked at the cover and nearly fell off my chair. For the rug there looked very similar to the one I had bought.

Front cover of "Yastiks" by Brian Morehouse. Philadelphia ICOC, 1996 also plate 55.

The Bellhaven Yastik from the Howe collection

A little reading and comparison with photos revealed that my rug is from Karapinar in Central Turkey. It is, in fact, a more recent version of Plate 55, the cover rug in the Morehouse book. Its drawing and colors are quite close to the older piece. The indicators that it is younger are as follows: (1) the field surrounding the central medallion has some filler devices not in the older pieces and that Morehouse says are characteristic of later production;

Detail Front cover of "Yastiks" by Brian Morehouse. Philadelphia ICOC, 1996

Detail - The Bellhaven Yastik

(2) the central device in the "insect" design of the main border is a kind of double gottchalk-cruciform design in the older rugs that has been simplified greatly in my piece (this device also appears in the center of the main medallion of the rug and in both of the "anchors" above and below it and in these latter places it is retained in its older version in my rug as well);

Detail - Front cover of "Yastiks" by Brian Morehouse. Philadelphia ICOC, 1996

Detail - The Bellhaven Yastik

(3) the lappets in the older pieces had four "leaves;" (Morehouse says that this was reduced to a two leaf version by the end of the 19t' century.) my piece has two-leaf lappets.); (4) it appears to me that there is at least one color that needs to be suspected as a synthetic dye and there may be more.

Four-leaf Lappets

Detail - Back cover of "Yastiks" by Brian Morehouse. Philadelphia ICOC, 1996

Two-leaf Lappets

Detail - The Bellhaven Yastik

So now I'm back on earth about this little piece. It's not the real old thing and I'm in no danger of putting it in auction, as Jane Ware reports someone did with one of the old ones of this type, a few years ago, and realizing, perhaps, as much as $4,600 for my trouble. But it was an exciting few minutes and it still seems to me to be a quite attractive piece. I'm conspiring now to remove the glue (anyone ever tried something called "Zip-Strip?").. I wonder how I would feel if it were an older piece but with the glue. Maybe we'll sit a couple of collie statues on it.

I almost forget to mention that my wife bought a little mat herself at this auction.: the doormat for Bellhaven Kennels. The technical description would say that it is hard rubber with a plain black field and white block letters. I will not say how much she paid (the Bellhaven kennel manager's granddaughter bid vigorously against her) but it has great provenance.

Regards,

R. John Howe

Washington, D.C.

Editor's Note: R. John Howe gave this to me ages ago, I lost it for a while. John is a basicly nice fellow.

Here is the book John references in the article;