HALI NEWSLETTER No. 433

[View this email in your browser]( After two record-breaking sales of Stuart Cary Welch's Islamic and Indian art in 2011, Sotheby's is honoured to offer The Edith & Stuart Cary Welch Collection on 25 October 2023. The sale boasts an impressive array of Indian paintings and objects, alongside a wide range of artworks including European silver, Chinese, Tibetan and Japanese art. Stuart Cary Welch (1928–2008) was a gifted scholar and hugely influential figure in the study of Indian and Middle Eastern arts and shared this journey with his wife Edith, with whom he built the most extraordinary collection of artworks. One of the highlights is a large 18th-century palampore from the Coromandel Coast which showcases the remarkable quality of Mughal artists and features a rich array of luscious flower heads juxtaposed against delicately drawn branches ([Lot 59](. This is offered alongside an extremely finely woven silk sash (patka) giving a glimpse into the traditions of courtly dress in Mughal India ([Lot 18](. This will be followed by the Arts of the Islamic World & India, also taking place on 25 October and featuring luxurious silks, velvets and embroideries from Central Asia, Mughal India, Europe and Ottoman Turkey. It will offer further examples of Mughal textiles of the highest quality such as a beautifully preserved Mughal velvet panel formerly in the Baron Edmond de Rothschild collection ([Lot 120]( and a radiant silk and metal-thread Deccani floor spread ([Lot 130](. From the early period, Sotheby’s is thrilled to offer a magnificent 15th-century Central Asian robe woven throughout with a rippling sea of cloud bands and giving an important view into the luxurious costumes of the Timurids ([Lot 112](. Both sales will exhibited at the New Bond Street galleries from 20 October–24 October. For further information, please [email](mailto:frankie.keyworth@sothebys.com) Frankie Keyworth. ['The Edith & Stuart Cary Welch Collection'.]( ['Arts of the Islamic World & India'.]( [News] Please join us on Thursday 19 October from 6-8pm, to celebrate the publication of 'Pull of the Thread: Textile Travels of a Generation' by Sheila Fruman. The book launch will be held at: The Joss Graham Gallery, 10 Eccleston Street, London, SW1W 9LT At 7pm, the author will be in conversation with four of the nine adventurers featured in the book, who have spent decades seeking out a range of woven treasures in Central and South Asia: Joss Graham, John Gillow, Steven Cohen and Pip Rau. Signed copies of the new title from Hali Publications Ltd. will be available at the event. Places are limited, please RSVP by email to events@hali.com by Tuesday 17 October. [Buy a copy of the book.]( [News] Textile Museum Associates of Southern California and the New England Rug Society present a webinar with Sheila Fruman on her newly published book Pull of the Thread: Textile Travels of a Generation. The webinar is free to join and will take place on 31 October 2023 at 10am PDT (6pm BST). For the new title, author and traveler Sheila Fruman has concentrated on nine intrepid travellers from the 1970s up to now, who, in their youth, combed the streets and bazaars of Central and South Asia finding, researching, collecting and selling antique woven ikat and embroidered Uzbek textiles and robes, Kashmir shawls, Anatolian kilims, Turkmen carpets and many other textile treasures. This generation of dealers and collectors all made important and even essential contributions to their fields, publishing books, staging exhibitions, and often gifting items to major institutions such as the V&A and The Met. The designs and motifs they popularised in the US and Europe can now be found in anything from haute couture to high-end interior design to mass-marketed bedding, tableware and clothing. These travellers have spent their lives seeking complex pieces of the past, and have intriguing stories to tell, and collections of some of the finest textiles of their kind in the world. Shown above is Pip Rau in her Islington shop. Photograph by Richard Waite for The Observer, 20 March 1988. [Register to join.]( The upcoming sale of Antiquities, Indian and Islamic Arts at Rosebery’s on 30 October will feature important examples of manuscripts, ceramics, metalwork, weaponry, textiles, ceramics and paintings, alongside modern and contemporary works from North Africa, the Middle East, Turkey, Islamic Spain and South Asia. The sale will offer the Private Library of Prof. Michael Rogers, former curator of the Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, London which contains over 900 rare publications, journals and pre-1960s monographs on the art and archaeology of the Mongol, Timurid, Safavid, Seljuq, Ottoman and Mughal dynasties (est. £15–20,000). Also on offer are over 150 Safavid and Qajar calligraphic works on paper, manuscripts and lacquer ware from a private London collection that was assembled over fifty years. Another highlight is the Islamic pottery section, featuring a number of figural Iznik dishes, a dish featuring an Ottoman lady (last sold at Sotheby’s in 1995) and three large Qajar oil paintings. Leading the modern and contemporary section is a large oil on canvas still life painted in 1986 by Indian modernist painter F.N. Souza (est. £30–50,000). Other works in the sale are by Krishna Khanna, Jatin Das, Sadanande Bakre and Emirati artist Abdul Qader Al Rais. [View the sale.]( Kaminski will hold two auctions on 21 and 22 October 2023 which will feature furniture and fine art from a Southern Connecticut estate and various New York City collections. The 22 October sale will offer over one hundred antique and semi-antique Persian rugs from a single owner's collection. The auctions are to be held at the Kaminski Gallery, 117 Elliott St., Beverly, MA. The sales can be previewed from 16–20 October, 9am–5pm. [Find out more.]( [News] Ishkar will host Sayali Goyal, the founder of Cocoa and Jasmine magazine, for a discussion about the Ahaata Project. The event will be held at the Ishkar showroom, 94 Columbia Road, London, E2 7QB on 19 October 2023 from 6.30–8pm. Born from the term 'Ahaata' which refers to a communal courtyard within a shared space, this project draws attention to the visual elements and emerging subcultures in the global Punjabi community. The project 'facilitates the exploration of new articulations by conducting ethnographic research and mapping local histories, craft communities, multi generational local businesses, vernacular architecture and more.' [Book tickets.]( [News] This month for [#RugFactFriday]( our focus shifts from rugs to textiles as we begin our exploration of baghs and phulkaris. Arguably among the most beautiful of Indian textiles, baghs have attracted their own terminology and, possibly, mythology. In [HALI 208]( from 2021, Karun Thakar uses his research and personal history to separate fact from fiction. 'Baghs (‘gardens’) and phulkaris (‘flower-work’) are cotton head coverings that were made in undivided Punjab (the historical region now includes Pakistani Punjab, including the further northern edge of Hazara and part of the modern Indian states of Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh). Women carried out the cotton picking and spinning; the thread would then be hand-woven into coarse cotton cloth called khaddar. Rangrez dyers would then dye the cotton to various red colours as well as indigo. All the embroidery was done from the back by counting threads in darning stitch using floss silk (heer). This technique was perfect for showing most of the silk in the front, as only a single thread would be caught in the back. The front surface would show a much longer float of the thread, providing the traditional stitch by building solid blocks of parallel rows of darning stitches.' Shown above is a detail from a woman’s shawl (bagh), undivided Punjab, late 19th century. Karun Thakar Collection. Read the full article by buying a copy of HALI 208. We will continue our exploration of these weavings next week in Chapter 2 of Rug Fact Friday. 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