Salor Main Carpet

Salor Main Carpet
280 x 228 cm (9' 2" x 7' 6")
Turkmenistan, early 19th century or even earlier
Condition: good according to age, mostly good pile, several old repairs and sewn up tears, lower kilim replaced, selvages rebound
Warp: wool, weft: wool, pile: wool with silk highlights

In his very complete analysis of Salor main carpets in Turkmen Carpets (2016), Jurg Rageth lists sixteen examples with five columns of twelve gülli-göls, almost half of the thirty-seven complete published examples. He also describes Salor main carpets as the classical carpets of the Turkmen tribes with the weave, dye and design quality setting the standard for all other Turkmen tribal weavings, and establishes the date range of 16th-19th century, during which period the design remained remarkably consistent.

This example has the clear madder red ground colour expected of examples from the late 18th/early 19th century and is in very good pile with a few areas of repiling.There are small areas of cochineal dyed silk in the centre of the göls, helping to demonstrate another Rageth observation about Salor weavings in that early examples use silk in contrast to other Turkmen weavings, where silk is used in later examples. It is worth noting that the survival of the kilims ends is rare.