Description

Mid 19th-century Turkoman main carpet made by a member of the Tekke tribe, with a field design of 4 x 10 guls and of unusually small size. Main carpets were made as part of the dowry, to be displayed at the wedding ceremony, and as such were an important declaration of the wealth and relative importance of the bride’s family, which is why these dowry pieces were made to the highest standard the bride’s family could afford. This extended to the quality of the wool, the dyes and the weaving itself. Each Turkoman tribe have their own distinctive gul , so the weaver had to stay within the confines of this, allowing her only a limited amount of freedom in the variation of the design of the main gul. It is thus not misplaced to say that main carpets were of heraldic importance to these tribal groupings. After the wedding, main carpets were used within the family on special occasions, which included entertaining a guest of honour.

Excellent quality of wool and dyes, with the saturated red based on the madder root. Very minor repairs, overall excellent condition

For further reading see Mackie, Louise W., and Jon Thompson (eds), Turkmen. Tribal Carpets and Traditions. Washington D.C., The Textile Museum, 1980. This publication also contains a large number of representative illustrations.  Pages 96 to 118 contain an excellent discussion of Tekke weavings. The main guls in our carpet belong, according to Thompson, to the oldest form of guls used in Tekke carpets (op.cit., p.98).

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