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Musealisation and ethno-cultural stereotypes in Persian art: the case of Baluch carpets ca. 1870s - 1930s
The so-called Baluch carpets include pile and flat weaving carpets, saddle bags, saddle covers, decorative bands for camels, horses and donkeys, bags, pillows and eating mats.1 Nineteenth century specimens are believed to have been created by Baluch tribes or nomads and their neighbours in areas that today correspond to eastern Iran, south Turkmenistan, east Afghanistan, and Baluchistan in southeast Pakistan.2 As previous studies have argued, there is no reliable attribution of these weavings to specific tribes or sometimes to Baluch themselves.3 Furthermore, early nineteenth century literature does not contain detailed reference to their designs so as to enable a solid basis for dating.4 Even if they are taxonomised among nomadic carpets with geometric designs influenced by Turcoman motifs they are also considered to be influenced by floral Persian designs 'filtered down to nomadic level' such as the 'Mina Khani' design that emerged in the Qajar court.5 Research indicates that the Baluch carpets came to be known in Europe during the second half of the nineteenth century among others through the acquisition and display of such weavings at cultural institutions, for example the South Kensington Museum (renamed to Victoria and Albert Museum in 1899) in 1876 or the Austrian Trade Museum in 1891, and through publications such as the one by Andreyevich Bobolyubov (1841-1909) in 1908 that enhanced the importance of tribal carpets.6 Nevertheless, the circumstances under which museums acquired, exhibited, and labelled the Baluch weavings during the nineteenth and early twentieth century have not been delineated in detail. Having in mind the above definition, it could be said that by retracing how museum objects were musealised it might be possible to decipher how a specific symbolic value was attributed to them.15 In this context, the present study revisits the travel memoirs by Henry Pottinger (1789-1856) and Charles Masson (1800-1853), the South Kensington Museum register and the catalogue exhibition of its Persian collection in 1876 written by Smith, the catalogue of the carpets exhibition of 1891 at the Austrian Trade Museum and Alois Riegl's (1858-1905) presentation of these carpets, the registers and catalogues of The George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum, The Allen Memorial Art Museum, The Textile Museum in Washington, DC (now The George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum), and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The scope is to compile a microstudy that refines these carpets as museum objects; also to delineate how art historiography linked tribal carpets and ethno-cultural prejudices in Persian art within museums of 'applied' arts as to those of 'fine' arts.
Journal Article
\A Great Symphony of Pure Form\: The 1931 International Exhibition of Persian Art and Its Influence
The 1931 International Exhibition of Persian Art, the brainchild of Arthur Upham Pope, was a grand extravaganza that brought Persian art to the forefront of public awareness. For a brief, intense period, all London was abuzz with the delirious enjoyment of the riot of \"pure form\" to be found at Burlington House. While the excitement died down after the close of the exhibition, its more profound effects were just beginning to be felt. Certain basic premises about Persia and its art, held subconsciously by most and expressed with passionate explicitness by Pope, gave the exhibition its unique intensity and ensured that its influence would continue to be felt in scholarship and museum exhibitions for decades to come.
Journal Article
Twentieth-century Myth-making: Persian Tribal Rugs
The subject of a number of studies including a TV programme, Qashqa'i carpets are perhaps the best-known tribal rugs of Iran; much is made of their ‘authenticity’. This article examines the argument that the aesthetic value of tribal carpets, especially those of Turkoman Central Asia, is gauged on regional and ethnic identification, rather than on design, colour and structural considerations, and reveals dual standards in operation, concerning the role of the maker in society.
Journal Article
