Edmund de Unger, the owner of this miniature (which is a leaf of Shah Thamasp’s Shah Nama, read about it here, read it here, see pages from various manuscripts here), was born into a Hungarian aristocratic family. His father was an Oriental carpet collector and his first drawings as a child were – carpet designs. His father’s collection died a dramatic death: during the 1945 fighting for Budapest, Russians buried their dead in them. One couldn’t very well object: they were, after all, war heroes. (And a carpet makes a fitting shroud for heroes, for sure).
After the communist take-over, Unger fled to the UK where for a time he served as a gentleman’s gentleman (literally) while studying for a barrister’s degree. He then joined British imperial foreign service and it is there that he caught the lustre-ware bug. It all went from there. Though it was probably inevitable: a collector is born a collector, Unger says, what he collects is a matter of accident – stamps, bottle caps, Old Masters.
(Certainly, this not the case with me: my collections are not collections at all. They are just assemblies of beautiful object of every category and description, since they do not follow any scheme at all -- no category, nor period, nor genre. Clearly, I am not a collector in the same sense as Unger. Nor in another: I do not care if my possessions are authentic; only if they are beautiful).
Still, I do understand something of de Unger’s pleasure: he recalls fondly falling asleep deliciously while counting his friend’s Qing pieces. It has happened to me.
Asked his favourite oriental carpet design he says without hesitation "Mamluk", because, no matter how many times one stares at one, he says, one always discovers something new. I understand this, too: I, too, am slave to complexity. Says who complexity is not a source of pleasure?
I found the interview in the most recent issue of Hali ("carpets, textiles and Islamic arts" -- where has this beauty been all my life?). There I also find other treasures; like the advertisement, by Azer Ilme, a carpet weaving and marketing company of Azerbaijan (see some of their offerings here), that they have managed to reproduce a Shehi Safi carpet (last examples of this wonder were made in the 16th century, back when Azris still spoke an Iranian dialect); and an article on the paracas carpets of Peru.
These last date to sometime between the 1st Century BC and 4th century AD. They were used to wrap the dead who were then buried in elaborate necropolises in the Paracas peninsula, Peru. Julio Tello discovered the necropolises in the early 1900´s when he noticed very strange -- and beautiful -- carpets for sale in the markets of Lima and followed the grave robbers to their source. The colors of the surviving carpets have been beautifully preserved in the dry darkness of the graves; we know nothing about the civilization that made them, or why they made them, or what the designs mean, but they look as if they had been died and woven only yesterday.
The Russians, wrapping their war dead in Persian carpets, were simply rediscovering what the people of Paracas had discovered long before them: that a carpet makes a fitting shroud for the dead. I should make a note of it: I too want to be buried in a richly woven carpet.
(All this for a mere afternoon at the library. Can you imagine? And they say reading does not have a future).
On a later day at the library I discover that burying the dead wrapped in carpets was an ancient Scythian custom. (This touches me deeply: I am supposedly of Scythian descent). The oldest extant European carpet comes from a Siberian Scythian burial.
After the communist take-over, Unger fled to the UK where for a time he served as a gentleman’s gentleman (literally) while studying for a barrister’s degree. He then joined British imperial foreign service and it is there that he caught the lustre-ware bug. It all went from there. Though it was probably inevitable: a collector is born a collector, Unger says, what he collects is a matter of accident – stamps, bottle caps, Old Masters.
(Certainly, this not the case with me: my collections are not collections at all. They are just assemblies of beautiful object of every category and description, since they do not follow any scheme at all -- no category, nor period, nor genre. Clearly, I am not a collector in the same sense as Unger. Nor in another: I do not care if my possessions are authentic; only if they are beautiful).
Still, I do understand something of de Unger’s pleasure: he recalls fondly falling asleep deliciously while counting his friend’s Qing pieces. It has happened to me.
Asked his favourite oriental carpet design he says without hesitation "Mamluk", because, no matter how many times one stares at one, he says, one always discovers something new. I understand this, too: I, too, am slave to complexity. Says who complexity is not a source of pleasure?
*
I found the interview in the most recent issue of Hali ("carpets, textiles and Islamic arts" -- where has this beauty been all my life?). There I also find other treasures; like the advertisement, by Azer Ilme, a carpet weaving and marketing company of Azerbaijan (see some of their offerings here), that they have managed to reproduce a Shehi Safi carpet (last examples of this wonder were made in the 16th century, back when Azris still spoke an Iranian dialect); and an article on the paracas carpets of Peru.
These last date to sometime between the 1st Century BC and 4th century AD. They were used to wrap the dead who were then buried in elaborate necropolises in the Paracas peninsula, Peru. Julio Tello discovered the necropolises in the early 1900´s when he noticed very strange -- and beautiful -- carpets for sale in the markets of Lima and followed the grave robbers to their source. The colors of the surviving carpets have been beautifully preserved in the dry darkness of the graves; we know nothing about the civilization that made them, or why they made them, or what the designs mean, but they look as if they had been died and woven only yesterday.
The Russians, wrapping their war dead in Persian carpets, were simply rediscovering what the people of Paracas had discovered long before them: that a carpet makes a fitting shroud for the dead. I should make a note of it: I too want to be buried in a richly woven carpet.
(All this for a mere afternoon at the library. Can you imagine? And they say reading does not have a future).
Post scriptum
On a later day at the library I discover that burying the dead wrapped in carpets was an ancient Scythian custom. (This touches me deeply: I am supposedly of Scythian descent). The oldest extant European carpet comes from a Siberian Scythian burial.
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