When the First Carpet Association of Budapest was formed in 2007, the goal was set: to revive Hungarian carpet culture - duly world famous before 1945 - and to acquaint national audiences with quality carpets as works of art.

We were overjoyed that following our interest expressed in the fall of 2009 the Jewish Museum opened its doors to our current exhibition where fabulous pieces of the Europe-wide known Jewish textile collection of the museum are also displayed.

According to our information the oldest carpet was found in the Pazyryk valley of the Altai Mountains (hence the name of the carpet), in 1949, by a Soviet archeologist team, lead by Sergei Rudenko. It dates back to the 5th century b. c.

Regarding the Pazyryk carpet, the question occurred: who were the first carpet weavers? According to the Turks and the Armenians, they were the ones, but Anton Felton, author of the book „Jewish Carpets” wrote that Jews could have made the first carpets. In scientific circles, it is agreed upon that Eastern-Asian nomadic tribes could have discovered the technique of knotting.

The oldest carpet linked to Jewry is on display at the Museum of Islamic Arts in Berlin, and it is a fragment of a Synagogue carpet from Spain, from the fourteenth century. It is proven historically that following the 1492 Spanish expulsion Sephardic Jewry influenced Ottoman carpet culture since that was the time when the famous columns of the Alhambra, Granada appeared on the prayer rugs. A superb early example of this period can be seen at the Washington Textile Museum. It is a carpet from the Cairo synagogue, from the beginning of the 17th century. Generally, it can be said that during the early Spanish days a healthy division of labor was formed between the Moors and the Jews. The former insured stocks and work force for rug making and the latter were key players in coloring the wool and selling the carpets.

We have experienced the same on the previous journeys of our association, in Bukhara for example, where Jews have traditionally been coloring the wool thread, the base of the carpet. According to the locals, Jews could be told apart from the others by their hands that were always colored by the dies and their caftans tied the other way around.

In Europe and in America the “discovery” of the oriental carpet began during the last third of the nineteenth century. The first independent carpet exhibition was opened in Vienna in 1891 but all dependable sources mention that the carpet as a piece of art was first exhibited at the Hungarian Museum of Applied Arts, in 1886, represented by 24 pieces of so-called Transylvanian rugs. The term is a little deceptive though. This set of carpets was made in Western Anatolian towns in the 17th century but large numbers survived in Transylvania only. It is understandable that the first comprehensive Turkish carpet exhibition was also held in the same museum in 1914. The richest Transylvanian carpet collection of the five most important carpet collections of the world can still be found at the Budapest Museum of Applied Arts.

Nothing underlines the commitment of the Hungarian nobility and upper middle class towards the carpet better than the fact that the first carpet association was formed here, in Budapest, in the fall of 1923, named Hungarian Carpet Enthusiasts Society. The next year already, they organized an independent exhibition at the Museum of Applied Arts showing 169 pieces from the largest private collections. The main patron of the exhibition was His Royal Highness Archduke Joseph August, and the patrons were Count Gyula Andrássy and Baron Adolf Kohner.

The exhibition was not only a cultural spectacle that year but an extraordinary social event, as well. The leading cultural magazine of the time, Nyugat (West) published a three-page article in its 1942/18 issue by Gyula Lengyel.

The main goal of the exhibition is to introduce carpets from the most important regions of rug making and to contest the common belief that carpet art only exists in the world of Islam.
The Armenian Christian carpet art is at least two thousand years old. There is a Tibetan carpet culture and a Chinese one, as well. It might be surprising but the Navajo Indians of Arizona do also weave carpets.

All the members of the First Carpet Association of Budapest cooperated in compiling and organizing the exhibition enthusiastically. We hope that after seeing the exhibition more and more people will rediscover the wonderful world of carpets.

Sándor Dénes
President
First Carpet Association of Budapest
www.szonyegtarsasag.hu

Sacred Textiles-History of Synagogue Textiles

Transylvanian Mystery