Category Archives: Uncategorized

Important War Rug Show and Book

While writing this I learned of the sad loss of Nigel Lendon, who knew more about war rugs than probably anyone. Thankfully, Nigel Lendon and Tim Bonyhady have mounted an important and excellent exhibition at the Drill Hall Gallery at the Australian National University . To accompany the exhibition Drill Hall Gallery has published the long awaited book by Nigel and Tim, which I recommend highly.

The exhibition has been extended in honor of Nigel Lendon, so get to ANU before November 14 to see special array of war rug. Also, make sure to get Nigel and Tim Bonyhady’s book, which is certain to be an important piece of war rug literature.

Luca Brancati Book!

Im a rare treat and a historic piece of war rug history, Luca Emilio Brancati has published a book. He has a unique and historic collection, so this book promises to be fascinating. It is available here, but American shipping is not yet available.
Order his book here (embed removed to prevent ugly and unwanted javascript from running on our page)

I am super excited to see it, and I expect to learn a great deal. Very exciting!

American Foreign Service Legal Defense Fund

To honor their oaths, some American civil servants are taking considerable risks and expense to describe the machination of the American government. Specialized legal council is important for these civil servants, but such expenses are not built into civil service salaries, so a fund has been set up to help civil servants with these expenses. More info here:

https://www.afsa.org/donate

Info about Temple Exhibition

Temple has put together an informative website about the show of war rugs they hosted in 2016. The present a good inventory the rugs, and an interesting commentary.

The Libraries and the Intellectual Heritage Program present an exhibition of Afghan War Rugs, traditional hand knotted carpets that combine ancient practice with the latest in the daily lives of the weavers. Many of the rug designs originate in antiquity, but since the 1980’s now incorporate the war that spans from the Soviet invasion through today’s battles with the Taliban. The weavers have witnessed epic historical events, encoded them in their traditional art, and wrought important contemporary art

Here is our inventory of the rugs warrug.com loaned them for the show.





The Jacques Cadry Collection

In 2017 there was an exceptional auction in Australia, which I just learned about from Luca Brancati’s Pinterest, of the Australian rug dealer and expert Jacques Cadry’s collection.

Here is a fine Kirman pictorial rug showing a scene familiar to fans of Afghan Pictorial rugs showing a garden scene with a woman pouring wine in a scene taken from Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat.


Here is an Afghan take on the same subject:


Some of the Soviet figure rugs and war rugs sold looked familiar from the work of Nigel Lendon and Tim Bonyhady. If you know the location of that resource, please contact me.





Here are some fascinating rugs. The price estimates looked good, so I regret missing the opportunity to bid.



This one is amazing, with Alexander of Macedonia’s citadel.

There were four Baghlani rugs in the auction, each one unusual and cool.

There were also a few examples of so-called Diamond Herati designs, which are the famous Herati design from Herat area.



Finally, there are a couple rugs which provide a unique and important perspective on an Turkish war rug from around the time of World War I


Available, please stay tuned for better photos.