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| Question lost. |
| Ah my friend a black ground Marasali
prayer rug with a pre-1800 date is a horse of a different
color as my father used to say. Most Marasali Prayer rugs are
commercial copies of the real ones. The commercial or
Kustar period started in the 1880s copying the rugs from
the Persian era, Persia controlled the Caucasus until a
series of treaties took them away beginning in 1817. Marasali is in Shirvan which was a Persian Khanate. A Khanate was an administrative district under the control of a centralized leader. In the Persian period silk was a very important crop in the region and many farmers practiced sericulture. Because of the dynamics of the silk trade the likelihood of silk usage in rugs decreases dramatically in the Czarist period. A date before 1800is very early. Wilber documents no Marasali rugs with dates prior to 1800 but he does document other related Caucasian rugs in that period so it is not implausible that a Marasali could predate 1800. This also matches with my expectation vis a vie silk usage. The earlier the Caucasian rug the more likely is the use of silk use. So what are you going to do now? Will you keep it or is it for sale? If you sell it how will you do it. Auction house, eBay, consignment to a major dealer or direct sale? Best wishes, |
For Further Reading: Thanks and best wishes, J. Barry O'Connell Jr. |
