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Lot Essay
This oft cited carpet, widely considered to be amongst the best in the group, has an intriguing provenance. It was reputedly gifted in 1907 to the Russian goldsmith and jeweller, Agathon Carl Theodor Fabergé, by his father, the famous court jeweller Peter Carl Fabergé. Agathon lived in a "dacha" in Levashovo, outside of St Petersburg, not far from the Finnish border. The interior was noted as being richly decorated with antique furniture, carpets, tapestries and other works of art, and was known by contemporaries as the “Little Hermitage”.
Agathon left the House of Fabergé in 1916 to open his own antique shop, but the shop was closed after the Bolshevik revolution, and in 1918 Agathon’s wife and children escaped to Finland, while he was imprisoned, and his property confiscated. Between 1921-1923 Agathon completed the catalogue of the crown jewels and later died in exile in Helsinki in 1951.
The Eagle Gül group carpets are amongst the most sought-after and enigmatic of all Turkmen weavings. Debate about their origins and relationship to wider Yomut tribal production continues unabated. The group was originally attributed to the Ogurjali tribe, now a part of the Yomut, by the Russian General A.A. Bogolyubov in the early 20th century (A.A. Bogolyubov, Tapis de l'Asie Centrale, St Petersburg, 1908 / 9). In 1980, Jon Thompson proposed a theory that the weavings were in fact created by the Imreli (Louise Mackie and Jon Thompson, Turkmen, Tribal Carpets and Traditions, Washington DC, 1980, pp.134-144), an idea that Elena Tsareva has revisited in her study of the Hoffmeister collection (Elena Tsareva, Turkmen Carpets, Masterpieces of Steppe Art from 16th to 19th Centuries: The Hoffmeister Collection, Stuttgart, 2011, pp.87-88). The Eagle Gül group I and II main carpets are very closely related but with a slightly different structure. Group I has red wool and silk and brown wool wefting and a Persian knot open to the left, where group II has brown wool and cotton wefting with a Persian knot open to the right. Each group uses the same excellent wool and a very similar design of rows of flaming 'Eagle' güls divided by lateral bands of dyrnak güls, surrounded by a lotus palmette border. The trefoil outer guard stripe is also commonplace. However, where group I main carpets have three rows of four Eagle güls, group II has four rows of three Eagle güls. There are currently fewer than twenty known Eagle Gül group II carpets.
The present lot is very well preserved, with fabulous wool and bright saturated colours. It relates closely to an example sold in these Rooms, 1 May 2025, lot 181, that was formerly in a private US collection. A comparable example but with a simplified border, sold Christie's London, 8 April 2014, lot 95, while a more worn example sold Sotheby's London, 3 November 2015, lot 22. For further discussion of the group and a comprehensive listing of Eagle Gül group II main carpets, please refer to Annette and Volker Rautenstengel, (Studien zur Teppich Cultur de Turkmen, Turkmen Main Carpets of Different Tribes with 'Eagle' - and Dyrnak-Gols - a comparison of their structure and their decoration, Hilden, 1990).
Agathon left the House of Fabergé in 1916 to open his own antique shop, but the shop was closed after the Bolshevik revolution, and in 1918 Agathon’s wife and children escaped to Finland, while he was imprisoned, and his property confiscated. Between 1921-1923 Agathon completed the catalogue of the crown jewels and later died in exile in Helsinki in 1951.
The Eagle Gül group carpets are amongst the most sought-after and enigmatic of all Turkmen weavings. Debate about their origins and relationship to wider Yomut tribal production continues unabated. The group was originally attributed to the Ogurjali tribe, now a part of the Yomut, by the Russian General A.A. Bogolyubov in the early 20th century (A.A. Bogolyubov, Tapis de l'Asie Centrale, St Petersburg, 1908 / 9). In 1980, Jon Thompson proposed a theory that the weavings were in fact created by the Imreli (Louise Mackie and Jon Thompson, Turkmen, Tribal Carpets and Traditions, Washington DC, 1980, pp.134-144), an idea that Elena Tsareva has revisited in her study of the Hoffmeister collection (Elena Tsareva, Turkmen Carpets, Masterpieces of Steppe Art from 16th to 19th Centuries: The Hoffmeister Collection, Stuttgart, 2011, pp.87-88). The Eagle Gül group I and II main carpets are very closely related but with a slightly different structure. Group I has red wool and silk and brown wool wefting and a Persian knot open to the left, where group II has brown wool and cotton wefting with a Persian knot open to the right. Each group uses the same excellent wool and a very similar design of rows of flaming 'Eagle' güls divided by lateral bands of dyrnak güls, surrounded by a lotus palmette border. The trefoil outer guard stripe is also commonplace. However, where group I main carpets have three rows of four Eagle güls, group II has four rows of three Eagle güls. There are currently fewer than twenty known Eagle Gül group II carpets.
The present lot is very well preserved, with fabulous wool and bright saturated colours. It relates closely to an example sold in these Rooms, 1 May 2025, lot 181, that was formerly in a private US collection. A comparable example but with a simplified border, sold Christie's London, 8 April 2014, lot 95, while a more worn example sold Sotheby's London, 3 November 2015, lot 22. For further discussion of the group and a comprehensive listing of Eagle Gül group II main carpets, please refer to Annette and Volker Rautenstengel, (Studien zur Teppich Cultur de Turkmen, Turkmen Main Carpets of Different Tribes with 'Eagle' - and Dyrnak-Gols - a comparison of their structure and their decoration, Hilden, 1990).