SOUTH CAUCASUS, MID 19TH CENTURY

Robert Pinner and Michael Franses, divided the then known star Kazaks into four groups labelling them A, B, C, and D, ('Star Kazaks', Hali, vol.3, no.1, 1980, pp.17-26). All of the ornaments on the present rug, including the border, minor stripes, and the coronet motifs fall cleanly within their classifications of group D. A very similar but much more worn example was sold in these Rooms, 10 April 2008, lot 17, whilst another 'D' group rug can be found in James D. Burns, The Caucasus, Traditions in Weaving, Seattle, 1984, no.31. Both of those examples include an additional inner guard stripe of alternating red and blue squares with centralised stellar motifs which the present lot does not. The ommission of this stripe allows the field design to spread laterally and appear more balanced and well spaced. A similarly spaced example to our lot is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, gifted by James F. Ballard in 1922 and is illustrated on the front cover of Raoul Tschebull's, Kazak, New York, 1971. Whilst the majority of the design attributes in the present rug fall within the 'D' category, it is interesting to note that this rug was initially started with a different border design of small squares filled with alternating coloured segments, which does not fall naturally within any of the Pinner/Franses classifications.