Another small mystery rug

[Erik Persson Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Erik Persson]

This small silk prayer carpet I bought over the Internet on a German rug auction last year:



Here is the description of the carpet by the auction house:

"80 cm x 48 cm..."Kum Kapi" prayer carpet. Silk with gilded yarn. Hand knotted. Turkey. Extremely fine knot. Probably Fatih District Istanbul about 80 - 100 years old."

Since the price was not very high, as usually will be the case with Kum Kapi rugs, and I could not find a parallel to it in the few books and articles on Kum Kapis I was able to find, I became a little suspicious about its origin. Could perhaps be a Kum Kapi, but... Then I came across this picture of a strikingly similar rug in Irmgard und Sefik Türker: "Kostbarkeiten orientalischer Teppichknüpfkunst", Band IV, Kollektion Türkas, 1975 p. 28-29:



Although the border is different, the colours differ somewhat, and my rug is smaller, the design is very, very close. So is it a Feshane? There is not much written about Feshane carpets which seem to be at least as rare as Kum Kapis, but they are given two chapters in this sumptuous book, where the Kollektion Türkas rugs are also referenced and apparently accepted as genuine:

https://arkassanatmerkezi.com/wp-con...manli-hali.pdf

So is my rug a Feshane, Kum Kapi or something else? What do you think?

[Erik Persson Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Erik Persson]

A very similar rug to mine has now shown up at an auction, somewhat oddly very close to where I live. The description by the auction house is very short, but they believe it is a Turkish Hereke. However, there is no Hereke signature on it or any other evidence supporting this, so it is probably just a reasonable guess.

[Joe Lawrence Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Joe Lawrence]

It is rather shocking the similarities between the two and it appears the second picture has a more refined weave structure. I do like the abrash on your rug. It also appears to be silk on cotton from what I can tell. I cannot see the silk from the pictures but I will assume you are correct. As far as attribution goes, you can refine your search area to Hereke, Bursa and Kayseri. These three areas produce the majority of silk prayer rugs. If it is silk on cotton, Kayseri would be a good starting point. This design appears rather common and I did find one for sale that lists it as new. Take that with a grain of salt as I see mis-dated and the wrong attribution on many rugs for sale. It’s almost comical in a way how butchered some listings are.
Although a majority of Turkish rugs use the symmetrical knot, don’t be shocked if you see a Persian knot. There are rugs produced with this knot in Kayseri although not common.

https://www.woodenlooms.com/products...hereke-rug-785

[Chuck Wagner Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Chuck Wagner]

Hi,

When you're not sure if it's a Hereke, there's no identifying inscription, and the sides are a little puckered, and it feels thin, think China.

This is especially true for very fine silk rugs with Arabic inscriptions that are so badly done that they are illegible.

Hereke copies started coming out of China in the late 1990's.

Regards
Chuck

[Joe Lawrence Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Joe Lawrence]

I do not think it’s a Hereke. If legit, I’d start at Kayseri. Especially since the fringes look like cotton.

I have recently seen a copy from China of a Turkoman rug. It even had abrash on it which of course was fake.

[Erik Persson Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Erik Persson]

Thank you, Joe and Chuck, for your views about this rug! I have a small collection of Hereke rugs, and I agree that this rug is somewhat different from your typical Hereke. What is not seen so well in the photographs is the quite exquisite use of metal threads, which may explain why the auction house I bought it from called it a "Kum Kapi" (NB! with quotation marks!). I have a few Herekes with metal threads, but here the use of metal threads appears much more refined to me.

I asked the seller at Wooden Looms about the rug Joe linked to. Here is his answer:

I can confirm that this rug is 100% a Turkish Hereke. As a collector of silk Turkish Hereke rugs myself, they are some of my favorites.

While this specific piece was not made by Özipek, Çınar, or other large companies, it was likely crafted by an individual weaver in Hereke. It is also signed in the corner for authenticity.

Checking closer, I now recognize that I missed the signature which can be seen with some difficulty in the lower border to the left on all three rugs, mea culpa! The warp looks a little like cotton, but it feels as silk, I think. The selvedges are indeed not the wide ones typical of genuine Turkish Herekes according to common rug lore and perhaps even somewhat "puckered". This said, I have seen similar selvedges on what I believe to be genuine Herekes also. I may be wrong, but considering what has appeared so far I am now inclined to believe that this is a genuine Turkish Hereke of a somewhat less common type. The pattern seems to be based on a classical Ottoman prayer rug, scaled down to a size fitting for wall-hanging that will also appeal to tourists and collectors. The seller's dating of my rug (80-100 years old) is hardly correct - considering that the Wooden Looms rug is advertised as "new", it will probably be of rather recent production, although it does not look new to me and I can understand why the seller dated it as he did.