A good year for the roses

Turkmen pulses in Europe were racing this week as two exceptional pieces came up for sale.

1

Important main carpets rarely appear at auction,but such was the case at Aponem/Druot Paris on February 22.Artfully arranged in a disorderly moving-house fashion,the catalogue photo nonetheless exuded an archaic magnificence.Carpets of this type,christened by Hali the”multiple-göl” group,are characterised by a mixture of Kepse and C-Göls,whereby the Kepse Göl is customarily  formed from two white crenellations.The major example of this is the Hecksher/De Young example(published in Hali 130/80)However the Druot piece was a real contender for second place,with a more interesting border,but lacking the visual clout of the SF piece due to a simplistic repetition of the C-Gul motif within the guls.It sold in the room for 24,000 euro after a pitched battle between two determined bidders.Unconfirmed reports are that the Hecksher carpet was sold for 160,000 dollars.

2-Archaic Kepse

Most of the pieces in this group employ the aforementioned kepse/C Gul formation.A piece in the Wher collection sports two Kepse and two C-Gul variations.Its unusual Kepse form is shared by a rug sold at Sothebys in October 1998,and another example in Munich(ex-Woger Collection)The famous Ballard rug(published Turkmen,Thompson,nr.62)is almost an outlier,albeit with the archaic kepse,and a combination of old Turkic forms and a Harshang design crashing discordantly together.
 More examples

As if that were not enough,underbidders got another chance to have at it via the good services of Historia Auctions in Berlin,when an Arabatchi Choval came up on the block.

3

Dated as "1920",bidding started at a derisory 50 euro and rocketed up to 13,000.Worn to the bone,lacking its sides, but with just enough elem to reveal a classical Halo-Tree design,this was nevertheless a harmonious piece with the poise found only in the best of type.Confident execution and an excellent relation between ground and inner gul colour helped to undermine this.No geeky orange colours or squashed guls,no über-decoration or "protuberances",but an austere Turkmen work of art.Voila!
Illustrations

In best ebay manner,both lots were treated in a negligent manner by their vendors,who knew they were onto a good thing.This would hardly be possible with classical carpets,but with Turkmens it still seems to work.There is nowhere to hide,on the internet.

 

A Countess in Augsburg

1.Pope,Survey,1939

A German Court has wisely decided against the plaintiff  in the case of

the Safavid carpet which later went on to a huge career at Christies

London.Any other decision would have severely infringed upon dealer

activity at auction.The legal complaint is so absurd that it was

actually taken seriously by the authorities,who eventually threw it out

on the 27th of January 2012.The battle may or may not be continued

before the Bavarian High Court.

It is almost as if someone had read the Hali commentary on the Béhague
Carpet,and decided to sue for damages.

The carpet was apparently in the possession of German carpet dealer
Herbert Steinhausen,who subsequently gave it as a present to his
housekeeper.He is said to have purchased it in 1987,at the Sotheby`s
auction in Monaco of the Countess de Béhague/Marquis de Ganay
collection.The Marquis de Ganay was Martine Béhague`s nephew,who
inherited her estate(not her husband,as stated by Christies and Hali)

Herbert Steinhausen was a Munich carpet dealer with a Showroom on the
Brienner Strasse.He seems to have dealt principally in new carpets,with
virtually no goods before 1920.After his death in the 80`s,his wife
continued the business for a while before closing.

His housekeeper was a close friend of the plaintiff,who subsequently
inherited the Béhague carpet,along with some other rugs from the
Steinhausen estate.It`s unclear why any rug dealer would give a carpet
of this stature to an employee living in a terraced house(a Hereke mat
might have been more appropriate) As the plaintiff moved house after the
death of her husband,she was obliged to downsize,and called in Georg
Rehm,the unfortunate auctioneer from Augsburg.What happened afterwards
is well known:the carpet,estimated at 900 euro finally sold for 19,700.

Six months later it sold for 7,2 million euro at Christies London.

2.Six years later,another carpet with the same design appeared at Christies,in the sale of carpets from the Alice de Rothschild Collection.A shortened version,it sold for 962,500 GBP(Sothebys 19.4.2016,lot 101)

The consignor,Frau N, was understandably upset.The story was widely

circulated in the German media. The auctioneers were accused of massive

incompetence,despite having consulted with local experts.The carpet is

said to have been purchased by a Hamburg dealer,who however failed to

show up at the trial.

On the day of the sale,the consignor at Christies was said by Hali

Online to have been  a very senior international dealer,who had acquired

the piece inexpensively at a small auction in Augsburg.

There are conflicting reports in the press concerning Herbert

Steinhausen.The Welt Online report infers that he acquired the carpet in

1987,and yet a few paragraphs later his housekeeper is said to have died

in the mid-eighties.How could either of these two woman have known about

the auction in Monaco? And why did Frau N not supply this information to

the auctioneers in Augsburg beforehand? It seems only to have occurred

to her after the Christies sale in London.

For in fact there were no carpets on offer at the Monaco Auction in 1987.

Indeed,there is no real evidence that the carpet ever belonged to the

Comtesse de Béhague,beyond Arthur Pope`s assertion.The Comtesse died in

1939.The "Survey of Persian Art"(carpets) was published in 1939.Thus the

Comtesse could not have contested ownership.There is neither written

proof nor confirmation from the family.No one can remember this large

carpet,even though it is said to have "possibly"lain in the Comtesse`s

bedroom.

The Comtesse is mentioned ten times in Pope`s  Survey(although not once

in the authoritative biography of Pope and Ackermann ,"Surveyors of

Persian Art")He published three carpets,one silk Keshan kilim,two

paintings and one persian velvet.Amongst the carpets was the Sanguszko

now in the Thyssen Collection,which Pope claimed to have examined

personally.According to Friedrich Spuhler,the carpet changed hands

sometime before 1930,so Pope`s information in 1939 was out of date.The

other carpet was a sickle-leaf lattice vase carpet,a fragment of which evidently appeared in Martin,fig.184.The keshan silk metal

tapestry has a medallion design.Neither of them seem to have been

re-published.

Kurt Erdmann wrote an extended review of Pope`s"Art of Carpet Making",a

major work in its own right.He criticised Pope for his weak

selection of sickle-leaf lattice carpets(including the second Béhague carpet)

Erdmann is at a loss to say quite where the Augsburg-Christies carpet

fits in,but he does find it"interesting".The placing of the Augsburg

carpet in Pope`s Survey could be construed as a kind of discrete

showcasing.

To sum up,we have a carpet whose provenance rests solely on information

supplied by Arthur Upham Pope,a scholar/dealer whose relationship to the

truth was at times strategic(the Rayy textiles scandal)We have a dead

German carpet dealer whose merchandise was basically new,but who managed

to acquire an obviously valuable antique carpet at an auction where no

carpets were on sale;his housekeeper who was the recipient of said

carpet,and her loyal friend who inherited it along with the story.

It is said that the Christies agents subsequently visited Frau N´s

house.There were no other carpets of value.

Martine de Behague

 

 

4.A PETAG carpet,circa 1920.Christies 27.4.2017(197)The PETAG carpets were the brainchild of  a conglomerate of German carpet dealers.Founded in 1911,they replicated classic Persian designs,in particular Vase carpets.But they also created their own designs by blending the Safavid styles.Although their rugs are usually Turkish knotted(because mostly woven in Tabriz)there is no ruling out the production of Persian-knotted carpets.Interestingly,a thorough technical analysis of the Behague/Rothschild Vase carpet seems not to exist.In the 2010 Christies catalogue there is no technical info at all,and although the 2016 catalogue makes an effort in this direction,it fails to confirm that the carpet is Persian knotted.Hence,there is no evidence that either of the two carpets has a Persian knot.










                             

The PETAG Factory,Tabriz