HALI NEWSLETTER No. 430

[View this email in your browser]( A collection of wonderful rugs and textiles is offered by Dennis Dodds at MAQAM Rugs. Shown above is an outstanding antique Kazak in an unusual kelleh format. All natural colours, including aubergine purple highlights. With lustrous wool, it has excellent pile and the ends and selvages are complete. With impressive scale and composition, the rug was probably a special village weaving for a regional khan, and has been in the private collection of Dennis Dodds since 1973. For enquiries, or to request additional images, call +1 215 248 0494 or email dennisdodds@juno.com. Viewings by appointment only. MAQAM Rugs, 9022 Germantown Avenue, Philadelphia, 19118. [View other pieces available at MAQAM rugs.]( [News] It is your last chance to see 'The Matter of Barkcloth', showing at Baltimore Museum of Art until 1 October 2023. Nineteen bark cloths from across Africa and Oceania are on show, inviting viewers to expand their view of the nature of art and re-examine limiting categorisations. Above is a mid-20th century Mbuti (Congolese) work. [Find out more.]( A. Davoodzadeh & Son is a second-generation antique and decorative rug business located in midtown Manhattan, New York. Visit the showroom to see a wide selection of antique, decorative and tribal rugs, primarily of Persian, Caucasian and Chinese origin. Contact A. Davoodzadeh & Son – Antique Rugs NYC for more information: Address: 25 West 31st Street, Suite 502, T: 212-268-5876 New York, NY 10001 E: davoodzadehrugs@aol.com [Visit A. Davoodzadeh & Son online.]( [Follow A. Davoodzadeh & Son on Instagram]( [News] Welcome to Chapter 3 of our exploration of Holbein rugs for [#RugFactFriday](. In her article in HALI 177 from Autumn 2013, Rosamond E. Mackan discusses an anonymous miniature removed from a Venetian statute book, now in Venice’s Museo Correr, which she says contains possibly the earliest representation of the style of Anatolian carpet design commonly named after the German painter Hans Holbein the Younger. She explores this point by comparing it to a recognisable Holbein example. Mackan begins: 'Executed in tempera on vellum, the painting preserves the fresh green and yellow of a new carpet, unlike surviving examples in which the unstable yellow has often faded. The three field motifs are closely related to early 'small-pattern Holbeins' (SPH) such as the well-known 15th-century fragment in the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum (TIEM), Istanbul (which can be seen on the above right), but there are important differences.' She explains: 'The two eight-pointed stars surrounded by bicolour black-edged interwoven strapwork in the Venetian painting correspond with the centrepieces of the Istanbul carpet’s medallions, but lack their knotted strapwork frames and contrasting background colour. Both have quatrefoils of crossed and interwoven stems in two black-edged colours ending in split-leaf rumi arabesques and stylised palmettes. Furthermore, a kufesque main border, common to both Holbein types, is missing. Foscari’s hybrid carpet offers a counterpoint to known fragments of a ‘Holbein variant’ carpet with large-pattern motifs in a small-pattern format, said to have come from the Palazzo Salvadore in Florence.' The article concludes with, 'Foscari’s carpet is certainly transitional, although some of its anomalies could perhaps be attributed to either the weaver or, more likely, the painter. Both probably had models before their eyes. The weaver perhaps had a cartoon or example of the quatrefoil, but could not remember a designer’s medallions or border. The painter may have misjudged the complete composition and simplified the border, but he did capture an intriguing moment in carpet making history, before the two Holbein types had gelled.' We will continue our exploration of these weavings in our next chapter of Rug Fact Friday next week. [Buy a digital subscription to read HALI 177.]( [Follow Us] [Facebook]( [Facebook]( [Instagram]( [Instagram]( [Been forwarded this email and want to receive it regularly? Subscribe to this newsletter]( Copyright © 2023, Hali Publications Ltd., All rights reserved. [unsubscribe from this list]( [update subscription preferences](