Exhibitions
APRIL
24
thru
JUNE 21, 2008
open to the public
Monday - Saturday, 9am to 5pm
Location:
Minasian Rug Company
1244 Chicago Avenue,
Evanston, IL 60202
click here for MAP
Click here to view exhibition postcard.
For more information, please call 847.864.1010
A noteworthy exhibition featuring more than
100 antique
tribal and village bags and bag faces from Persia, Turkey, Afghanistan
and the Caucasus. Highly collectable, these containers were both
practical necessities and bold and colorful works of art which
simultaneously celebrate the weaver’s skill and tribal identity.
From the Mediterranean
shores to the mountains of Afghanistan, the tribes and villages of the
Islamic world produced an astonishing variety of textile bags and
containers for every conceivable purpose. This fact gives testimony to
the requirements of storage and mobility in a mostly arid environment,
coupled with a weaving tradition that had evolved from the earliest
stirrings of civilization. Overlying these practical considerations
was a native love of color and design. The result of this synthesis is
a wide-ranging collection of textiles highly prized by collectors and
connoisseurs throughout much of the world. Many of the finest bag
faces not only embody distinctive tribal and geographic
characteristics, but social considerations as well: a young women
demonstrated her weaving skills, thus enhancing her value to a future
husband. Women often brought to their marriages a variety of bags and
containers designed to be used in their new lives. Saddle bags, for
example, were often a present to the bridegroom. It takes little
imagination to understand the care and pride with which such textiles
were woven.
The many pieces in this
exhibit are constructed in a variety of techniques: knotted pile,
tapestry weave, brocading, soumak weft-wrapping, tufting,
reverse-brocading, and in many examples a combination of techniques.
Some bag faces illustrate a nearly complete vocabulary of a given
tribe's design portfolio. Thus, a collector can capture in miniature
the culture of a tribe or ethnic group in a way that is both efficient
and relatively affordable. In addition to saddle bags and tent bags,
this exhibit includes examples of bedding bags, grain bags, salt bags,
purses, bags for tent poles, bags designed to hold loaves of bread for
wedding rituals, bags for jewelry, as well as bags for every
conceivable type of storage, including some of purely speculative
function.
While bags are still
being produced, most of the better examples are antique or
semi-antique, and exist for the most part in collections, which are
the principal source of the pieces which appear from time to time on
the market. Without such collections, this exhibition would have been
impossible. Our gratitude for this generosity in sharing these prized
possessions is sincere and beyond easy expression.
Recent Exhibition
November 16, 2007
thru January
26, 2008
open to the public
Monday - Saturday, 9am to 5pm
Click here
to read the Evanston RoundTable
December review of this show
Renowned textile expert
Joseph W. Fell has selected fine Kashmiri, Persian and European shawls
from the Minasian Textile Arts inventory and from private collections,
including his own. Come and explore this rare offering of luxuriously
hand embroidered and Jacquard loomed pieces from the 18th and 19th
centuries.
Click here to view exhibition postcard.
For more information, please call 847.864.1010
