The Tibetan Rug Market ( & Scholarship ) - Waving in the Breeze
- article and photos by Thomas Cole, June 9th 2003
Like the proverbial prayer flags, flapping in a high Himalayan breeze,
the direction of the Tibetan rug market remains with out a real direction
or purpose. After all these years (12 to be exact since the appearance of
HALI 49, Tibetan Rugs - A Tribal Tradition), some progress has been made
in regards to what the general public feels is "good" but myth,
fantasy and misunderstandings are still promoted in the back room
discussions, publications, and dealer fairs.
'Tibetan Rugs - A Tribal Tradition' was met with derision and
incredulity by the traditional Tibetophile crowd at the time of its
publication. The market and collector focus had revolved around pictorial
designs, and those with Buddhist elements. Geometrics and simple patterns
were scorned in spite of Philip Denwood's 1974 publication which casually
mentioned that these were in fact the oldest rugs extant from the plateau
region.
Now the market and collectors generally understand what is old but that
has little to do with changing the perspective of collectors' focus.
Inevitably, later rugs are still common in most collections. While
"good" rugs are few and far between in the narrow context of
Tibetan rugs, as they are among other types (notably Baluch), the dealers'
fairs (ie. Caskey/Lees, HALI, etc) rarely provide a venue for seeing truly
old and beautiful Tibetan rugs. Too often, it is the ubiquitous
checkerboard rug that can be seen, in addition to a variety of odd
tsuktruk weavings (usually single coloured pile weavings consisting of
narrow strips sewn together, originally woven on a small back strap loom.
Rarely do these rug occur with designs). Curiously the tsuktruk weavings
had not really appeared in the marketpace of the late 1980's/early 90's.
The so-called "Wangden" rugs are really at the very core of
the gap in scholarship in the Tibetan rug field. Wangden is a village in
Tsang province of Tibet, purportedly a traditional weaving center from
which ALL these rugs once referred to as warp faced back weavings emerged.
Curiously, the variation in palette and structural materials along with
weave pattern have not been accounted for and all these weavings of this
type are known by this name. Such attributions recall the ubiquitous
"Bokhara" name assigned to all Tekke Turkmen rugs with rows of
gols and a certain look or feel. While Wangden may be a source for some of
these rugs and is certainly a weaving center today, an industry fostered
by foreign investment and entrepreneurial skills, the idea that rugs with
very different palettes (ie.dyes, dyes are determined by provenance),
there is really little to no chance that the varying types of "wangden"
rugs originate from this one spot on the map. Note in the following group
of photos, the very different appearance of three pieces when viewed from
the back. One has brown warps, the second has real goat hair warps and the
third has ivory woolen warps. All three typify distinct types of from this
larger group of warp faced back rugs. The fundamental misunderstanding of
the significance of these variations is at the very core of the confusion
concerning the entire field of Tibetan rugs by those intimately involved
with procuring and promoting them to an eager client base.
The tiger rug phenomenon is also crucial to understanding the trends in
the Tibetan rug market. Fad and fashion are common in ALL areas of rug
collecting. These fashions in Tibetan rug collecting are not necessarily
predicated on rarity of the object but the possible use and/or role it
played in Buddhist dharma practice. Tiger rugs fulfill many of the
expectations of the average Tibetan rug aficionado. Labeled as meditation
rugs or lama rugs has done much to contribute to their desirability. While
some are most certainly designed for monastic use (see figure), many of
the older ones with a simple brown ground colour with brown, black or dark
blue stripes may very well have been used by members of the secular
population.
Every square mat in Tibet is a meditation mat. Or so we would be led to
believe by how these rugs are labeled the literature. I used to say,
tongue in cheek, that if every square mat extant was designed for
meditation, everyone in Tibet would be meditating and no one would be
doing anything else but committing themselves to the dharma. Obviously
this is not so.
I have always found it curious that the checkerboard rugs are some of
the most popular type to come out of Tibet. Obviously an understanding of
iconography or design pool is not necessary to appreciating these rugs. I
also understand their appeal in a decorative market, for decorators hired
by clients to furnish an apartment or house. But how these rugs came to be
considered collectible in the true sense of the word is beyond me,
especially when the vast majority of them exhibit an extremely limited
palette (ie. blue/tan squares of colour) or synthetic dyes and are of
limited visual appeal. This example is one of the more colourful ones,
with the uncharacteristic use of three colours, red, green, and white.
Even the Baluch market, with a relatively underdeveloped aesthetic, is
unforgiving when it comes to synthetic dyes. And the Turkmen market.no
need to really explore that further as it is the most strident market when
it comes to purity of design, colour and age.
The client base has yet to question the theories which have been
casually espoused, a curious phenomenon as those with interest in other
types of rugs are quick to discuss, question, and refute similar theories
on Turkmen (ie. the Imreli controversy proposed by the leading expert in
the field) or Baluch (ie. the Hazara/Karai proposals).
Why? Certainly this is not a less
