IMAGE DETAILS

'Marasali' Shirvan sumakh horse cover, Caucusas, late 19th century, 1.18 x 1.66m, lot 3, est: €8,000, sold for €10,800

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25 November 2004

Daniel Shaffer writes: For me the memory of Rippon Boswell's Wiesbaden auction on 20 November 2004 will be forever overshadowed by the sad news of the death that evening of my friend and mentor, Robert Pinner. Tributes to Robert will be paid elsewhere, but for many of us in the room where his beloved collection of Turkmen rugs had been sold half a year earlier, Robert was the ultimate teppichfreund, a fount of vigorously shared hospitality, knowledge, connoisseurship, and wisdom. We shall all miss him.

Returning to more mundane matters of wool, silk and lucre, the Wiesbaden sale began with 91 lots consigned by the Horst and Eva Engelhardt Foundation, with the proceeds going to charity. The rugs, from the former Mannheim dealers' private collection, were an odd assortment of very high quality, predominantly 19th century, Persian, Chinese and Caucasian rugs, in traditional taste, mostly in smaller formats and all in immaculate condition. Some are known from the series of Engelhardt catalogues of the 1970s. Sensibly Detlef and Christa Maltzahn had negotiated reserve prices that were as much as 50 percent below the rather high published estimates, thereby yielding a total take well above the agreed minimum.

The Engelhardts had some very good Caucasians. Lot 3, a very fine late 19th century 'Marasali' Shirvan sumakh horse cover, crisply drawn and colourful, sold to a phone bidder for €10,800 (including 20 percent buyer's premium). Next up, lot 4, was one of the most beautiful blue-ground star and rosette Kuba runners I have seen. It is fine, with wonderful colours, a well-drawn field and Kufic borders and the date inscription 1287 (1871), and despite being cut and slightly reduced in length, it was a real bargain at just €6,720. Also dated, 1275 (1859), was an unusual Lesghi prayer rug (lot 21), chunkily woven, with a yellow-ground floral lattice within a series of well-proportioned borders, which fetched €12,000. Lot 26, a wonderful early Talish runner with a chevron field and an exceptionally beautiful series of borders deservedly made €25,200. Another intriguing rug, perhaps slightly flattered by its catalogue illustration, was lot 65, a small Kuba with a yellow field of S-form 'dragon' motifs within bold hooked blue and white borders. It was bought by one of a very active contingent of Milanese dealers at the front of the room for €14,400.

Forty Engelhardt pieces were Persian, many of them small, fine, antique wool pile 'town' rugs (Farahan, Malayer, Saruk, Sehna, Serabend), mainly with medallion designs. Hard to sell given today's fashions, most went for prices that were, in real terms, probably less than the collectors had paid for them. Arguably the best of the small town rugs was lot 48, a Saruk millefleurs/tree-of-life prayer rug, which was bought by Milan's newest recruit to the upmarket gallery scene, Claudia Pavignano, for €11,400. She also bought a very attractive Malayer saddle cover, lot 72, for €6,240.

There were also some very good Bijars, a few northwest Persian (Sarab, Songhor, Hamadan) camel-ground runners, a couple of good Herizes (lot 20, a blue-ground 'Bakhshaish' design medallion carpet fetched €24,000), a little group of Tabrizes, the most expensive of which was a very good large silk garden carpet, estimated at €165,000, as well as a handful of more 'tribal' pieces. Another of the Milanesi bought three excellent camel-ground pieces, paying €12,00 for lot 22, a small 'Serapi' rug with a field of sparse branching tracery, €15,600 for a very good medallion and pendants Bijar kelleh (lot 32), and a very inexpensive €8,640 for a delightful small format Bakhshaish, lot 71.

Engelhardt had only one Turkish rug of note, lot 27, a very good if perhaps slightly narrow ivory-ground Ladik prayer rug with Lefevre provenance, super colours, including a brilliant purple, and dated 1187 (1774). It fetched a reasonable €12,000 for a type so conspicuously out of fashion.

The largest and most decorative of Engelhardt's Chinese pieces was lot 35, an early 20th century blue-ground overall design Beijing workshop carpet, sold for €31,200. A beautiful Ningxia square of about 1800, lot 66, fetched €9,600, and the next lot, a very good pillar rug with a dragon design was sold for €14,200. A handsome mid-19th century ivory-ground Ningxia dragon rug was bought by Heinrich Kirchheim, the well known collector of very early Anatolian carpets, for just €7,800. This was not the only instance of buyers in the room who collect in other areas picking up very pretty decorative Chinese material at bargain prices. In particular, three top Turkomaniacs, Peter Hoffmeister, Hans Sienknecht and Uwe Bauer were among the happy purchasers of the various small Ningxia and Gansu seat, throne, bench and saddle covers on offer.

The second part of the sale got off to a frenetic start with the Milanesi scrapping among themselves for lot 19, an unillustrated good old Khotan medallion carpet, so thoroughly worn that it is best considered as a flatweave. Estimated at €500, it eventually sold to someone in the front row for €7,560.

There are really two main stories to be told about this part of the Wiesbaden sale. One is of the enduring buoyancy of the collector market for good Turkmen weavings, even in hard times, with further high quality consignments brought out of the woodwork by the surge of enthusiasm generated by the Pinner sale last May selling well. The other concerns the deepening unease with which the market now views certain antique Turkish and Caucasian rugs with Turkish 'connections'.

First of the Turkmens was a very good vertical half of a Saryk main carpet, lot 102, which was cheap at €3,360. It was immediately followed by a superb Yomut chuval, lot 103, unillustrated and missing its sides, but with amazing colour depth in its purple-red field, its quality evidenced by the €6,000 paid. The same sum was fetched by lot 126a, a late entry Yomut bokche. Ms Pavignano was again busy buying lot 156, a lovely early Saryk ensi, for a bargain €20,400, while an imposing Kizyl Ayak chuval, lot 178, went to a telephone bidder for €8,400.

A magnificent early Tekke main carpet, lot 181, with an intricate white-ground curled-leaf border, akin to the much more damaged large fragment in the Pinner Collection (15 May 2004, lot 33, unsold), was not expensive at €38,400. Lot 127, a Tekke kapunuk, was so damaged that someone said it looked as if it had been peppered with buckshot: condition, and a slightly muted palette, kept the price down to a mere €6,000. A Tekke 'white-panel' kap, lot 183, was sold on the phone for €4,320.

The first of a clutch of very good Salors, lot 105, an excellent but rather battered two-göl kejebe trapping, went to a phone bidder for €14,400. Lot 169, a sparkling, rare and very fine and precise kapunuk, sourced from an old private collection in France, was not over-priced at €24,000, nor was the following lot, a jewel-like three-göl chuval with glowing colours, bought by Peter Hoffmeister for €33,600.

Before moving onto the Turkish rugs, a handful of other items deserve a mention. One was an exceptionally classy south Caucasian sumakh mafrash panel, lot 121, somewhat deeper than usual with a very elegant design derived from the Afshan pattern, which sold for €7,560. Another was lot 129, a spectacularly bold and colourful south Caucasian/Azerbaijan horizontally striped palas, which must be a best-of-type candidate, another bargain bought by the Milanesi up front for €11,400. A superb, very fine Qashqa'i medallion rug, in perfect condition, lot 153 deserved to make €12,000, while lot 174, a beautiful medallion design kelleh from Persian Kurdistan, thought by several people to be the prettiest rug on offer all afternoon, was the subject of lively bidding from all corners of the room before selling for €16,800 (estimate €3,000).

Which brings us to the Turkish rugs on offer. The good news was lot 128, one of the most wonderful yastiks I have seen, a white-ground central Anatolian piece, which Ms Pavignano swept away over all comers for €10,800. The bad news was the group of high-ticket 19th century and earlier Turkish village rugs (Karapinar x 4, Konya, Kütahya, Aksaray, Bergama, Dazgiri), at least some of which are assumed to come from the same consignor, which for the most part failed to come close to their estimates and remained unsold.

Their failure, which had a serious impact on the overall result of what was otherwise a remarkably animated and successful sale, must be attributed to a combination of unrealistic consignor expectations in a market where wary potential buyers now anticipate recent over-restoration and artistic augmentation, finding it even when it is not necessarily present. In these circumstances, perfectly legitimate material, some of it of great beauty and interest, becomes tainted by association.