Rippon Boswell, Wiesbaden, has just announced a presentation by Dr. Georg Butterweck from Vienna, to be held at their premises on Friday, 4 December 2009, at 6 p.m.
On the Rippon Boswell auction on 5 December 2009 the von Bode “Lotto” carpet, lot 173, will be offered for sale.
Georg Butterweck, a well-known Austrian carpet scholar has analysed some 350 “Lotto” field designs to date. At the Volkmann meeting focusing on “Ottoman carpets in Transylvania”, held in Berlin in 2006, Butterweck spoke on a previously undiscovered secret of “Lotto” carpets: an exact design analysis has revealed that animal motifs derived from Chinese designs are concealed between the octagonal and cruciform ornaments of the field ground. Previously, Lotto designs were only analysed and interpreted in terms of the Islamic symbolism and worldview, and the designs in the field ground were neither taken into account nor identified as Chinese symbols.
Moreover, the presentation will discuss the basic concept, aesthetic structure and various styles of this famous carpet family, as well as issues relating to date. It will also establish why lot 173, the “Lotto” carpet formerly owned by art historian and Director of the Berlin Islamic Museum Wilhelm von Bode, is considered a first-rate example of its kind.
The piece passed from Bode´s possession into the hands of Friedrich Sarre. In 1983, this Lotto was exhibited in Austria and published in the TKF catalogue. Now it has been submitted from an old private collection in the Netherlands.
Location and more information: Rippon Boswell & Co., Friedrichstrasse 45, D – 65185 Wiesbaden
Source: Press release Rippon Boswell, 27 November 2009