SOUTH WEST TURKESTAN, FIRST HALF 19TH CENTURY

The Eagle Gül Group are one of 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 lotus palmette borders. 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 in an excellent state of preservation with fabulous wool and bright saturated colours. It relates closely to one of the best examples of the group, the Fabergé Eagle Gül Group II carpet, that was included in the Palazzo Reale exhibition, Sovrani Tappeti, which accompanied the 9th International Conference on Oriental Carpets in Milan (Sovrani Tappeti, Milan, 1999, p.132). 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.