Turkmen Main Carpet (1870s): Art, History and Details

Turkmen Main Carpet (1870s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Traditionally woven by women and girls, carpets are identified by fiber content, color, weave, and especially the type of rug knot-diagnostic features that are more reliable than designs. This rare carpet is admired for its brilliant color, lustrous wool, and spacious drawing. The main gul, or lobed motif, with three distinctive clover-leaf devices in each quadrant was a hallmark of the esteemed Salor tribe and often copied by other Turkmen tribes. The minor gul and the main border design were also duplicated. Only the minor borders with triangles in contrasting colors are Saryk hallmarks.

Object facts

• Title: Turkmen Main Carpet
• Date: 1870s
• Culture: Turkmenistan or Afghanistan, Saryk tribe, 19th century
• Type: Carpet
• Technique: Wool, silk; 171 symmetrical (Turkish) knots per square inch
• Dimensions: Overall: 257.7 x 250.2 cm (101 7/16 x 98 1/2 in.)
• Collection: Textiles
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 2006.201

Collection credit

Gift of Arlene C. Cooper

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.