Antiquity is the aristocracy of history and nothing else could better display this antiquity than antique carpets, rugs and tapestries with excellent hand-woven designs and motifs made with beautifully coloured natural dyes. This is the picture of antiquity that a leading Indian auction house with a team of international specialists in Indian art, give us in their very first specialist Carpets, Rugs and Tapestries to be held later this week. The carpets on auction are primarily drawn from the passionate hobby of the collector who has gathered them from trade, auction and other collectors in the US, Europe and Central Asia over the past two decades. There were around 120 pieces and the uniqueness of this auction lies in the fact that the majority of the pieces are over 100-years-old and on offer are carpets, rugs, kilims, runners, tapestries and fragments from the most distinguished weaving regions in the world. This attractive collection has estimates ranging from as low as `15,000 and going up to Rs 9,00,000 for serious and discerning collectors.
“The focus on the catalogue is central Asia and northern Africa and they are not readily available anywhere in India. “They are mostly tribal carpets, hand woven by the nomadic women of the Caucasian regions which represents not only the topography, but also the psychology of that particular society,” said Ankush Dadha, Managing Director of Bid and Hammer. The carpets represent the naive beauty and joy of the simple lives of the tribal weavers who have produced them. The material used is predominantly high mountain wool and a little cotton in a few exceptions. Colours are usually attributed to natural dyes in the earlier centuries though mixed with relatively newer inorganic colours which were mixed in the later centuries. The collection includes tribal carpets from many weaving regions outside India- the Caucasian regions between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. The Kurdish enclaves of Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria. Almost all the groups from these regions are nomadic migrants. So, the weaving is a fantastic potpourri of diverse ethnicity, tribal lifestyles and indigenous customs. Each carpet represents a story, is exclusive and stands out with an individual identity.Wonderful, hand woven tapestries with original gilded frames with scenes of a society or animals on them, from the early 19th centuries are another catch at the auction. In the American concept, anything more than 3 ft 4 inches by 3 ft 4 inches can be classified as a rug and the ones in this auction are an absolute bliss. With most of the rugs being prayer rugs of olden times, they have a particular pattern of designs to give them an abstract geometric form and they are made from different wool counts. “The purpose of this specialist auction of historic carpets and tapestries is to develop the market for art, aesthetics and utility,” adds Ankush. All in all, the common denominator of the collection are a few pictorial tapestries and rugs irrespective of their age, colour and condition.
The excitement of owning a good few carpets is that you can change the decor from your drawing room or wall. A break from monotony!