Wendel Swan Chair, Executive Committee ICOC

One of the great collectors and experts is Wendel Swan of Alexandria Virginia. Wendel is ever his own man and that sets him apart. You can love him or not but only a fool would not respect him. I have mentioned him in other articles but it seems like it is time to revisit a man who is friend and teacher. We have not always agreed on many things but as I grow older I respect him all the more.

Michael Buddeberg, Alberto Boralevi, Wendel Swan, Dennis Dodds, Peter Bichler, Anette Granlund

Above we see Wendel with friends at the festivities leading up to the opening of the new Textile Museum in Washington DC. Wendel was part of the heat and soul of the Board of Trustees of the TM that saved the TM from ruin. At one point I believed that the glory days of the TM were long past. There were some very dark days for the Museum. Wendel with Bruce Baganz and others charted a bold course that looks to insure that the best days of the Textile Museum are still to come.

Here we see Wendel with his beautiful and charming wife Diane. The young fellow on the right is Robert Torchia had been a Curator at Lightner Museum, St. Augustine, Florida who wrote some important work on Oriental Rugs.

 

Ming Dais Cover from the Swan Collection

This piece was a very memorable part of the Swan collection. In part because of its beauty and rarity and partially because it sold for multiples of its high estimate at auction. 

The Wendel R. Swan Cruciform Sumac Shahsavan Bag

Another typical piece from the Swan collection is this bag, Typical in that many authorities consider it best of type. Wendel has great discernment and an eye for color.

Alberto Boralevi, Wendel Swan and Bruce Baganz

Wendel has been deeply involved in making things better in so many ways. As president of the International Hajji Baba Swan was able to heal the rift and reunite the Washington DC area rug clubs. Raising the club to new heights sadly for the club he stepped down to let the group fall into relative irrelevance. But he did so to give him time to rescue the TM and continue the important work of the ICOC.

Robert Pinner and Wendel Swan

Wendel was a great friend and worked for years with the late Robert Pinner on the ICOC the International Conference on Oriental Carpets. The ICOC is the closest thing the field of Oriental Rugs has to a scholarly assembly. It does much to raise he level of scholarship and discourse in the field of Oriental Rugs.

It as a sad day indeed when I received this message from Wendel:

Date:	Sun, 21 Nov 2004 15:26:35 -0500
From:	"Wendel and Diane Swan"
Subject:	Robert Pinner

Dear Friends,

With a sense of deep personal loss, I must report that Robert Pinner 
passed away peacefully at his home in Twickenham last night.

As the founder of ICOC, the co-founder of Hali and as a tireless energy 
behind both until just recently, his influence on the world of carpets 
and textiles has been enormous. Those of us who worked with him became 
infected by his enthusiasm and benefited from his generosity. We also 
endured, from time to time, the wrath of his extraordinarily keen mind. 
 That was his nature. That is why we loved him. We have lost a dear 
friend.

Wendel Swan

One strong defender of Wendel Swan was his friend Harold Keshishian. I remember one time a mutual friend was unkind in a comment about Wendel and Harold firmly put him in his place. I also remember how concerned he was at one point about Wendel's health despite the fact that HK was himself dying.

If someone wanted to meet Wendel San there is no better place then to come to

The next major ICOC event will be 6 – 9 August 2015

13th ICOC in Washington DC

Wendel R. Swan (USA) Chair, Executive Committee

All of this is my idea and done without Wendel's knowledge or permission. If he finds fault I will correct or delete. Some pictures I had and some borrowed from R. John Howe

Baluchi Rugs: Good Baluch or Great Baluch?

How do we tell the difference between a good Baluch rug and a great Baluch rug? For that matter how do we tell the difference between between a Baluch of acceptable quality and one better suited for a dog's bed?
To help educate I am going to review a Baluch rug from Alberto Boralevi Italy's noted rug scholar. Despite his unparalleled scholarship Alberto deals in great rugs that are modest to moderately priced. What makes them great is his attention to the minor details in addition to the major ones. Alberto sees things most miss.

First of all there is color:

There is an almost magical quality about the color of the best Baluch Rugs. This rug currently for sale on RugRabbit stunned me when I first saw it. We see five colors, Red, White, Green, and Blue. From the madder root we see the orange red of the Guls outlined with a deeper medium madder red or natural white. The field is Aubergine a madder based color. In the Guls we see yellow, brown, dark blue, a light blue and a blue green.
In a Persian workshop rug this level of wear would diminish the rug. But with a rug like this the wear actually gives the rug a three dimensional quality and makes it more interesting. Besides Alberto hails from Italy where color and beauty are judged far greater than condition. By Italian stands this rug is "Near Perfect" :-)

N.B.  from Albero Boralevi:
Dear Barry, yes I am a little embarrassed because you are too much positive in describing me and my rugs. Thank you. I must only add that that the colours of this piece that I still have and I really love for its wool quality are not all natural dyes. The orange yellow is faded if you look at it in the knots and there is a deep green that is very suspicious, but this didn't prevent me to consider it as a very beautiful one.

Alberto is always modest and scrupulously fair. 

This is an up-close sort of rug. The yellow and brown barely show from more than a few feet way. It also speaks to the dyes. The rug appears to be mostly natural dyes. But with that in mind look at the yellow. It is not sun-faded so that tells us that this rug is not from Afghanistan where the natural yellow was isparek. Alberto feels it is a synthetic orange. The range and quality of dyes indicates that the weaver was either incredibly gifted or more likely had the wool dyed by the Jewish dye master in or near Mashhad.

I hope I will not offend Alberto Boralevi when I say this rug does not give up its secrets from across the room. Instead it is under close examination that the magic is apparent. 

This is not just a good Baluch Rug this is  a Great Baluch Rug. (even with a synthetic dye)

Notes on RugRabbit
Alberto Boralevi
Baluch with traces of the original brocaded kilim ends; wool is soft lustrous and very silky. The ground aubergine-brown is corroded giving to the pattern a nice relief effect.Late 19th or early 20th c. 181 x 117 cm.
Ask about this 
price:  price on request (of course!)

Are most 19th century Kazak Rugs Fake?

In 1828 the Muslim Khajar rulers of the Khanate of Eravan lost their land to the Russians. Between 1828 and 1832 more than 100,000 Armenians moved in and an equal number of Azeri fled south to Persia. The Russian census i.e. the Kameral'noe Opisanie notes that more than 1/3 of all of the villages were abandoned. 

The Armenians wove rugs to survive. Many of the patterns were borrowed from the Azeri weavers. From 1832 on I estimate 90% of all Kazak rugs were Armenian “copies”. Does this mean that 90% of all Kazak rugs are “Fake”.

Such an idea is ludicrous but some people seem to think that way. I suggest that instead the rugs of the Caucasus evolved and the great rugs of Kazak are treasures. 

A good silk rug or is it a great silk Qum?

Recently Academy of Oriental Rugs associate Chris Howell sent me pictures of a rug that he had been called to work on. The rug is very special but how do we judge it.

This rug is a silk Qum and it measures 53.5 " x 86.5 (4 foot 7.5 inches by 7 foot 4.5 inches) which for working purposes we will round to 32 sqare feet.

When we look at the knot count I estimate it to be 624 knots per square inch. Which is a fine rug but not the finest but quite respectable. It is possible I underestimated it but with my poor old eyes I will wait to see if anyone comes up with a better KPSI count. 
So the silk and the knot count tell us this is at least a good silk Qum silk rug but is it a great silk Qum?

This rug is signed but sometimes the signature is significant and all too often the signature is of no consequence and has no effect in value. Fortunately Hamza Kanaan was able to translate it as Qum Mir Mahdi. At first I thought this rug might be by my friend Morteza Mirmehdia so I compared the signatures.

 Based on this I conclude this is not by the master Morteza Mirmehdi. One question is how do I know this is an auhentic Mir-Mehdi of Qum signature? Rather simple with this one since Morteza's daughter showed it to me in his presence on one of my trips to Iran. See my article:

Mirmehdi of Qum at Kish Carpet Festival 2005

So if it is not Mortza Mihmedhi then who? Actually this is not a bad thing. There are two Mirmehdi rug masters in Qum and the other is older and better known so his rugs sell for even more money.  So at this point the question is does this rug appear to be good enough to attributed to the elder Mirmehdi of Qum?

This picture is by far the most important in making the attribution. Please note the roses. Each rose is slightly different. This means instead of a master artist drawing one rose the master drew each rose separately. The artist is paid by the complexity of the design. So what we see in less expensive (less valuable) rugs we see what we call a repeat. A standard medallion Persian rug is a 4 part repeat meaning that each quarter of the rug is the same as the other three. Or as we see in a Turkmen rug where each Gul copies all the others. But not here. What we have is where every facet of the design is custom designed and represents far more work and far more cost in the preparation of design. This can only be achieved under the auspices and supervision of an Ustad or Master.

That being said this is not merely a good silk Qum rug it is a great Silk Qum rug. As such it must not only be judged as a rug but more than that this is clearly a Work of Art.Lacking any other reason and insight I must suggest that this is the work of the master the elder Mirmehdi of Qum and should be valued accordingly. 

I base this on my examination  of the images and the property and condition report of Academy of Oriental Rugs Associate Chris Howell.