Imre Jakabffy (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 2. (Budapest, 1974)

GOMBOS, Károly: An interesting Tekke-Turkoman carpet

were not taken to abroad or did not get damaged during the siege of Budapest. The Central Asian carpets were much liked in Hungary in spite of the fact that only a few details were known of them. Its reason may have been that the art of the Central Asian nomad peoples' carpetweaving contains much original artistical value. These carpets' colouring and patterning are more vivid than those of other Oriental carpets in commerce. These carpets are not the result of merely routin work. Neither specialists nor collectors of those times had extensive knowledge about the Central Asian carpets of deep red colours and geometrical designs. This can be easily understood because the Soviet researches relating to this subject were extended only in the decades after the 1

st world war, and the Hungarian public opinion was isolated from the results of Soviet researches in oriental art history except for sparse news and a few scientific works. Among the exhibitors there were the most known collectors of Central Asian carpets of the prewar years. Gyula Wolfner 12, Aladár Halász 9, Ottó Fettick 7, Lajos Petracsek 5 and other carpet-lovers sent respectively 1, 2 or 3 pieces to the monstre exhibition. Regrettably the catalogue contained the photos of only 4 Central Asian carpets with their most important data and their owners' names. According to the data figuring in the catalogue Ottó Fettick held possession of the Bokhara-carpet of 847. registry number. Its photo was presented under the same number on the XXXV. plate. Size: 225 X 196 cm, dated to the 18th century/' Dr. Ottó Fettick was a veterinary. This scientist of distinction was a connoisseur with refined taste of pottery, of glassware, of textile arts, in Oriental arts and at the same time he was an assiduous collector of these objects of art, He spent his tidy income on enlargement of his collection. He gave in 1946 his collection of precious oriental carpets to the Museum of Applied Arts without any reservation. Among the 27 presently stored Central Asian textile objects in the Museum of Applied Arts we keep a record of 9 pieces as Ottó Fettick's donation which are carpets, prayer rugs, bags and swathing bands. There are among these carpets some Tekke-Turkoman examples figuring under the Yomud, Baluchi and Bukhara designations. The most beautiful of them is the just mentioned Bukhara-carpet which worthily acts for the Turkoman people's art of carpet-weaving on the Jubilee Exhibition of the Museum of Applied Arts celebrating in 1972 the 100th anniversary of its foundation. This carpet is doubtless identical with the piece of the 1929's exhibition of oriental arts. The identification was helped by the fact that both on the carpet and on the black and white photo made in 1929 is discernible the typical Tekke-Turkoman ornamentation, which is placed in 5 columns on the field of the carpet and by the flat-woven edge with 3 stripes which is also peculiar to the Central Asian carpet. The photo of the 1929's catalogue showed only the below part of the carpet and that caused some difficulties in the identification together with a false datum, i.e. the size of the carpet was not controlled in the past years. This Bukhara carpet was exhibited in 1929 with its real measures (255 X 196 cm) whereas in 1972 with wrong ones (202 X 261 cm). Besides all these there were some other questions concerning this object to be researched and written down more exactly and amply (Fig. 1.). The description in the inventory of the Museum does not contain any data of that when this Bukhara-carpet got to 130