IMAGE DETAILS

Lotto rug, Rippon Boswell, lot 173, made €85,400 ($128,100)

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08 January 2010

Rippon Boswell’s 5 December 2009 sale in Wiesbaden showed that in an unpredictable market quality sells – and in the case of RB it sells well. Top price was paid for lot 173 (above), a well provenanced ‘kilim-style’ Lotto rug, which made €85,400 ($128,100). Once owned by Wilhelm von Bode, director general of the Berlin museums and founder of the Islamic Art Museum (MIK), it passed on his death to his colleague Friedrich Sarre, the first director of the MIK, then to his daughter, before making its way into Dutch private hands. Although it was not bought by the MIK one hopes that there is still a chance that it may end up there, its spiritual home.

Next most expensive at €63,440 ($95,160) apiece were lot 126, a composite frag­ment of a 16th century Kashan carpet with cartouche border and palmette field, woven in wool on a yellow silk foun­d­ation, last seen at Lefevre in October 1979 (£15,500, ‘Herat’); and lot 202, an early 19th century Moghan long rug (the younger sibling of a runner in Hermann’s ATTK 4, 1992, no.55), said to have been acquired in a London sale in the early 1970s for not much more than £1,000.

Suzanis and other embroideries fared less well than at recent RB sales. The cover piece, lot 124, a four-and-one Shahrisyabz on undyed homespun cotton was a bar-gain for an Austrian collector at €45,140 ($67,710), since it was by common consent one of the most beautiful of its type, while a New York Hajji should be well pleased with the €8,450 ($12,810) he paid for lot 107, a boldly rustic Samarkand. Other good examples went unsold.

A beautiful Göklan tentband, lot 129, almost tripled estimate to make €19,520 ($29,280), and a rare Turkmen chuval, said by some to be ‘Amu Darya Salor’ went to the USA at €23,790 ($35,685). Chinese and Xinjiang rugs sold well, and there were two lovely African blankets.