It’s an old adage: “if you have nothing
good to say, don’t say it” but in today’s
topsey-turvey times of idiotic political correctness and epidemic malfeasance RK suggests replacing it with “if you can’t speak truth, keep quiet”.
In that vein we are only writing to respond to the hype recently published on the hali website concerning two upcoming American auction sales – the first, and hardly a redux of six years ago, at Brunk in North Carolina and the other a combo sale of the cast-offs, mistakes and lesser weavings two in‘name’only collectors -- myrna bloom and William Eagleton – own.
Neither of these sales is worth mention for the goods on offer and that is why RK has thus far ignored comment. But when those mokes for hire over at hali try to play ad-writers instead of reporters, BS like the following needs to be set straight.
Here’s some and our comments following in bold italics:
“The week ahead sees two potentially rewarding auction sales of oriental rugs and textiles at widely separated locations on the eastern seaboard of the USA. First, on Saturday 12 September 2009, Brunk Auctions in Asheville, North Carolina, offer more than a hundred carpets and rugs, including, among others, some important classical period weavings from the collection of Tryon Palace in New Bern.”
Sounds good, huh: “important classical period weavings”? But, in fact, there is not one, let alone other, “important” rug in this sale.
There are some worn and tired out mediocre examples of “classical” carpets from a former “palace”. However none are true “golden age” masterpieces -- far from it to be sure.
“Two days later and many hundred miles further north, on Monday 14 September Grogan & Co. in Dedham, Massachusetts have a two-hundred lot sale of tribal and village rugs, textiles, costume and books from the collections of two individuals, both now retired, well known and respected in the oriental rug world, the veteran Philadelphia specialist bookseller Myrna Bloom, and Ambassador William Eagleton of Taos in New Mexico.”
The jury is out on whatever “respect” rugDUMB has for bloom, as for Eagleton? Had he not been a “United States ambassador” RK doubts his name would garner any “respect”.
Regardless, say we, were these two ‘collectors’ “respected” for their ‘collections’, expertise or knowledge?
Let RK answer with the facts: their “collections” are far from first tier and neither has, to the best of our experience, added anything noteworthy to rug studies.
No, no once more hali’s doing nothing but blowing a horn and cheerleading while pretending to be journalists “reviewing” Fall rug sales.
“Grogan & Co. in Dedham, Massachusetts have a two-hundred lot sale of tribal and village rugs, textiles, costume and books from the collections of two individuals, both now retired, well known and respected in the oriental rug world, the veteran Philadelphia specialist bookseller Myrna Bloom, and Ambassador William Eagleton of Taos in New Mexico.”
This is nothing new for hali, the hyping of certain rugDUMB events--always mind you ones on their agenda.
But what could that auctioneer of the bloom/Eagleton “treasures” be thinking by packaging lesser examples, cast-offs and mistakes of two far from “important” collections and end up with anything except a sucker’s sale?
At least the Brunk sale has a modicum of “pedigree” that might suffice for blowing BS about – afterall Tyron Palace has ‘history’.
That said we must add: Too bad the “floor rugs” purchased for the “palace”, by the way from some of the most “respected” oriental rug dealers of the time, were of such mediocre quality and unimportant historic content.
Fact is even in perfect condition the rugs from the “palace” are not worthy of mention artistically or historically. But they aren’t, and in the condition they are in Robert Brunk Senior’s “estimates” are truly in line with their “real” value.
Yet RK well knows the stupidity of the “rare” rug-buying public and therefore will not be surprised to see those estimates dusted in zealous over-bidding by wanna be’s buying pedigreed, shabby-chic floor covering for their 10,000 sqft mansions.
Nevertheless, left unsaid remains the fact only a small number of the 106 weavings on offer come from the “palace”, the rest are consignments from the usual suspects who thought piling on to this one might work for them.
Be this the case let us be the first to awaken them, and hali’s editors as well, from dreamy slumber – neither the Brunk auction or the bloom/Eagleton rummage sale will be successful.
As for their results possibly showing “green-shoots”?
Come on now, hali-boys and ‘girls’, were these two sales not chockfull of airport-art and mediocrity they might then just be a good judge of the rug “market”.
But RK realizes they know this, which leads us to continue to question hali-speak or that uttered by rugDUMB’s 'establishment'.
nuff said,we trust
here is the hali “review” in entirety
“The week ahead sees two potentially rewarding auction sales of oriental rugs and textiles at widely separated locations on the eastern seaboard of the USA. First, on Saturday 12 September 2009, Brunk Auctions in Asheville, North Carolina, offer more than a hundred carpets and rugs, including, among others, some important classical period weavings from the collection of Tryon Palace in New Bern. Two days later and many hundred miles further north, on Monday 14 September Grogan & Co. in Dedham, Massachusetts have a two-hundred lot sale of tribal and village rugs, textiles, costume and books from the collections of two individuals, both now retired, well known and respected in the oriental rug world, the veteran Philadelphia specialist bookseller Myrna Bloom, and Ambassador William Eagleton of Taos in New Mexico.
Bob Brunk’s ‘provincial’ auction house in Asheville achieved banner headlines a few years back with the extraordinarily dramatic sale of several severely undercatalogued carpets and rugs from the Foy Casper collection, among them the grandest and most beautiful of all classical period Karapinar carpets. This time, with the Tryon Palace ‘deacquisition’ of some three dozen pieces, Brunk have taken their cataloguing to the opposite extreme, enlisting former Textile Museum Eastern Hemisphere curator Carol Bier to help with the more important early pieces.
Tryon Palace was built in the late 1760s by the pre-revolutionary British Governor, William Tryon, and served as the North Carolina seat of government until the state capital was move to Raleigh in the 1790s. Unfortunately for carpet historians, none of the Tryon consignment has been in situ since then, as the building has been victim to fire on more than one occasion. The present offering includes several ‘historical’ pieces that were acquired from well-known New York and other dealers in the late 1950s and 1960s, but which are now for the most part in heavily worn condition after decades of use in public rooms.
First and foremost among these is lot 22, a once grand 16th/17th century Cairene Ottoman medallion carpet, worn overall and with substantial repiling, but essentially complete, provenanced to French & Co. and the Mitchell Samuels Collection, who were its owners when it was published by Arthur Dilley in 1959 (Oriental Rugs and Carpets, Pl.XLV). Estimated at $30-60,000 it also carries a published reserve price (admirably transparent, but rather an unusual practice) of $25,000.
Lot 14, over eleven metres in length with a compartmented design, is equivocally catalogued as a 17th century ‘Indo-Persian’ carpet, thereby neatly dodging the issue of whether it is of Indian or Iranian origin. With an illustrious provenance that includes the Dukes of Bragança in Portugal and Clarence H. MacKay in Long Island, it was purchased from French & Co in 1958, and is now estimated at $40-60,000, with an $30,000 reserve. Lot 15 (estimate 15-25,000, reserve $10,000) is a very typical 17th century Kerman vase-technique ‘shrub’ carpet, formerly in the George Blumenthal Collection, which was acquired from French & Co. in 1962.
The leading New York rug dealer Vojtech Blau was another significant source for Tryon, with acquisitions ranging from a late period (17th/18th century) Ushak medallion carpet (lot 16, estimate $20-40,000, reserve $15,000), through a very unusual 19th century Ushak (‘Turkey carpet’) runner (lot 11), to a Kashan pictorial carpet of the late 19th century with a menagerie of exotic creatures (lot 8, estimate $15-25,000, reserve $12,000). Other East coast carpet enterprises patronised more or less regularly by the palace included Leon F. Stark in Philadelphia, Serunian & Sons in Greensboro, NC, and Kent-Costikyan in New York.
The bulk of Michael Grogan’s sale in Dedham on the outskirts of Boston comprises a very mixed bag of diverse rugs and trappings (including a substantial group of Turkmen pieces), textiles, ethnic garments and books from the personal collection of Myrna Bloom, whose East-West Room in Dresher, a suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has been an institution in the rug world since the early 1980s. An artist and sculptor who began as a buyer and user of books and catalogues relevant to her ever growing rug and textile collection, and turned this activity into a thriving business, Myrna has now retired to Florida and is no longer able to house and display her collection.
The Bloom lots are followed Bill Eagleton’s much more focussed collection of predominantly Turkish, Kurdish and Persian pile rugs and kilims of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Eagleton, a distinguished career diplomat and Middle East specialist who over the years served first the US State Department, for whom his long career culminated as Ambassador to Syria, and then the United Nations, where he was based in both Vienna and Sarajevo doing important work with the UNHCR, is best known in rug-circles for his pioneering work on Kurdish weavings in Syria, Iraq, Iran and Anatolia, An Introduction to Kurdish Rugs and other Weavings, published in 1988.
It remains to be seen how these two sales will fare against the current gloomy economic background – we can but hope that they may provide our market with a sign that the first green shoots of a recovery will be evident. Certainly there are bargains to be has in both auctions.
The leading New York rug dealer Vojtech Blau was another significant source for Tryon, with acquisitions ranging from a late period (17th/18th century) Ushak medallion carpet (lot 16, estimate $20-40,000, reserve $15,000), through a very unusual 19th century Ushak (‘Turkey carpet’) runner (lot 11), to a Kashan pictorial carpet of the late 19th century with a menagerie of exotic creatures (lot 8, estimate $15-25,000, reserve $12,000). Other East coast carpet enterprises patronised more or less regularly by the palace included Leon F. Stark in Philadelphia, Serunian & Sons in Greensboro, NC, and Kent-Costikyan in New York.
The bulk of Michael Grogan’s sale in Dedham on the outskirts of Boston comprises a very mixed bag of diverse rugs and trappings (including a substantial group of Turkmen pieces), textiles, ethnic garments and books from the personal collection of Myrna Bloom, whose East-West Room in Dresher, a suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has been an institution in the rug world since the early 1980s. An artist and sculptor who began as a buyer and user of books and catalogues relevant to her ever growing rug and textile collection, and turned this activity into a thriving business, Myrna has now retired to Florida and is no longer able to house and display her collection
The Bloom lots are followed Bill Eagleton’s much more focussed collection of predominantly Turkish, Kurdish and Persian pile rugs and kilims of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Eagleton, a distinguished career diplomat and Middle East specialist who over the years served first the US State Department, for whom his long career culminated as Ambassador to Syria, and then the United Nations, where he was based in both Vienna and Sarajevo doing important work with the UNHCR, is best known in rug-circles for his pioneering work on Kurdish weavings in Syria, Iraq, Iran and Anatolia, An Introduction to Kurdish Rugs and other Weavings, published in 1988.
It remains to be seen how these two sales will fare against the current gloomy economic background – we can but hope that they may provide our market with a sign that the first green shoots of a recovery will be evident. Certainly there are bargains to be has in both auctions."