Minasian Rug & Carpet Exhibitions

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Rugs & Carpets
Current | Hali Reviews of Exhibitions

Current Exhibition

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.

Local Oriental Rug Store
Hosts Course
article from The Daily Northwestern;
ssue date: 11/14/06 Section: City
by Melissa Kreitner
Media Credit: Jane Lim/The Daily Northwestern
photo: Carnig Minasian, co-owner of
Minasian Rug Company

With their noses up against 200-year-old Oriental rugs, students in Carnig Minasian's Oriental rug class are on their hands and knees trying to get a grasp on the rugs' defining characteristics.

The course, part of Northwestern's School of Continuing Studies, is held at Minasian Rug Company, 1244 Chicago Ave., a family-owned store run by brothers Carnig and Armen Minasian.

As an adviser on the board of The Textile Museum in Washington and a consultant for Arzu, an Afghani weaving program, Carnig Minasian is an influential figure in the textile industry.

The store houses 4,000 to 6,000 ancient rugs, making it home to one of the largest ancient rug collections in the country, Minasian said. Some of the rugs are used as examples for the class.

Offered as part of a certificate in connoisseurship of fine and decorative art, the five-week course is meant to teach the students to analyze the differences among rugs. The technique is useful for antique dealers and people in similar professions, Minasian said.

The six students this term come from various backgrounds, including social work and law. Some students said they were former customers while others said they simply are interested in the subject.

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