Early Karadashli Main Carpet

Early Karadashli Main Carpet
275 x 176 cm (9' x 5' 9")
Turkmenistan, 18th century
Condition: very good according to age, low pile in places but not worn, several professional repairs and reweavings, selvages rebound, upper end slightly incomplete
Warp: wool, weft: wool and cotton, pile: wool

Very early Karadashli main carpet with extremely rare ornamentation. Produced latest around 1800, more probably in the 18th century. Color publication in Auction catalogue AAC I, 21.09.2013, lot 80.
So far only two comparable examples are known in the literature, one in a private German collection, so far unpublished, the other belonging to the Weise Collection, published in "Botschafter aus dem Orient", 2019, page 54.
This piece however with a different secondary motif, also typical for Karadashli production. Characteristic for Karadashli is symmetrical knotting with slight depression, subdued color palette, cotton wefting and very durable pile wool lacking intense lustrousness. Weise mentions ornamental relationship with a trapping from the Hintlian Collection published in Mackie/Thompson as plate 59.
This trapping has however asymmetrical knotting and was probably woven by the neighboring Goklan tribal, both have been sedentary well before 1800 in the fertile southwestern Gurgan/Atrek plains. Ornamental take-over between neighboring tribes for various not clearly defined reasons happens quite often.

Estimate: € 30000 - 40000