Preview: Collector Rugs and Textiles at Rippon Boswell in Wiesbaden, 30 November 2013

November 22, 2013

Rippon Boswell will hold their autumn sale of Collector Rugs and Textiles in Wiesbaden, Germany on Saturday 30th November 2013. The auction is open to preview daily from Wednesday 27th until the morning of the sale. A few decorative room-size carpets are included among them but the focus of the auction, as always in Wiesbaden, is mainly on collector rugs and textiles. One of the undoubted highlights is a very rare, early 18th century, Azerbaijan embroidered roundel, lot 149, depicting mounted archers hunting animals. This previously unpublished textile has been in a South German collection for the past thirty years.

The oldest rug offered is the bold and beautiful former Grote-Hasenbalg/Cassirer East Anatolian village rug, lot 138, woven around 1700, a rare prototype whose influence can be seen in the designs of later Kazaks. The sale also includes a large number of antique Caucasian rugs, the majority of which are consigned from an old private collection in The Netherlands. Among Central Asian rugs and textiles, early Salor (lot 100) and ‘Eagle-group’ (lot 192) Turkmen wedding trappings stand out, the latter having been published in 1980 in Mackie & Thompson’s Turkmen book. Another important West Turkestan piece is lot 122, an embroidered Tekke asmalyk, arguably the best example to come onto the market in recent years. A fantastic Shahrisyabz suzani, lot 159, should also be mentioned.

There are eleven book lots, including some important early works: a ‘Martin’ from 1906–1908; a first edition ‘Bogoluboff’ from 1908 on Turkmen rugs; and, most notably, a so-called ‘Vienna work’ from 1892–1896, with 101 large plates of Classical carpets. This last publication is almost impossible to find today.