Transylvanian Mystery

In the world of carpets, the Carpathian basin is a little mystery itself. This region offers the widest variety of a certain group of antique carpets, the 16-18th century Western-Anatolian or Ottoman-Turkish rugs (not existing in their land of origin, in Turkey any more).

By today all art historians, carpets collectors, more and more carpet lovers and interested individuals are aware of this fact. In Hungary few people know about it, but fortunately, there are more visitors in the Hungarian museums and regular visits are also organized to not just Hungarian national collections but also to Transylvanian Saxon fortress-churches and the museums of Szeben and Bucharest. Because the displays are marvelous. Nowhere in the world have hundreds of years old carpets been preserved in such high numbers and great shape like these. The uniformity of the collection is an interesting addition and unmatched value. This is one of the wonders of the world of carpets.

The fact that this rich Central-European collection is connected to the period of Transylvanian principality is not disputed anymore and that those larger or smaller collections that can be found from Budapest to Vienna, Berlin and Nuremberg all have Transylvanian associations.

The largest carpet collection up to date can be found in Transylvanian Saxon Protestant churches. Almost four hundred pieces of „Holbein”, „Lotto”, „Usak”, „Selendi”, „Gördesz”, „Ladik” belong to the Lutheran church and the majority are hung on the whitewashed walls of the churches in unbelievably good condition. Besides the names listed above, the term “Transylvanian rug” became a widely recognized and used professional jargon. The “Transylvanian rug” has become a special phrase that it is picked up on by every carpet lover, anywhere in the world. Conference presentations not to be missed and rare and highly valued items of auction houses belong here.

Carpet art is going through a renaissance in Hungary, as well. The first wave of the discovery of carpets and the Transylvanian ones within began at the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries. In the 19th century with the emergence of Orientalism, several German scholars visited Transylvania and studied the carpets there. Later, British and American scholars and businesspeople arrived in Transylvania. At the same time, the Transylvanian carpet stock began to decrease. Merchants, agents and collectors started to buy and ship the Anatolian carpets to Western Europe and the USA. This time it was not only the Saxon communities but the Transylvanian Hungarian protestant communities and the Catholic Church as well, who owned a number of antique Transylvanian rugs. By now, only a few Saxon and even fewer Hungarian churches and parishes possess a smaller but still internationally highly valued collection.

The arrival of Anatolian carpets to Transylvania is closely related to the emergence of the Ottoman Empire and its extension towards Europe. Oriental carpets have already been arriving on the continent as proven by the North-Italian paintings from the 14th - 15th centuries. A series of pieces from Florence, Siena and Venice depict carpets from this period. Later, in the 16th – 17th centuries the depiction of carpets appears on Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese paintings referring unmistakably to wealth and social standing.

The East-Western continental commercial routes of the 15th century led through the present day Romania and Hungary. The rich Brasov archival records from the 1480s do contain data on rugs and kilims. These tax listings point out that the tax, defined as one twentieth of the goods (hence the name “twentieth”), could be paid in goods, therefore in carpets, as well. This custom remained in use and it caused a number of Oriental carpets ending up in the treasury and in the hands of certain individuals, communities and guilds, by the turn of the 15th – 16th centuries.

The rug became increasingly popular from that time on. Besides expressing social and economic standing it served safeguarding and accumulation purposes. This is how the formation of the first collections began.
Gábor Bethlen, prince of Transylvania can be regarded as the first great carpet collector as the period account registers mention a large amount of them. The prince’s 1625 register recounts seventy seven carpets and the 1629 register recounts 259 carpets already, placed in the Gyulafehérvár regal palace (besides mentioning 155 pieces of European tapestries). To understand how well appreciated the rug was at that time, the period sources mention that Johannes Hermann painter from Szeben was only allowed to paint the walls of the regal palace in between the rugs.

The “Limitation of the Cattle to be bought from Turkish, Greek and Jewish Merchants” is also connected to Bethlen containing the maximum duties paid by these merchants. According to it, large rugs were valued at sixteen, the smaller at nine and the smallest at eight forints.
The carpets were considered a valuable gift by the end of the 15th century. The self-government of Brasov gave the Transylvanian vice-duke (voivode) a large number of rugs in 1495 and later the Bosnian bishop, Wladislaw the 2nd and János Szapolyai as a present.

The Torda Parliament – where the famous parliament of 1568 convened voting on religious freedom the first time ever – donated carpets frequently, e.g. to Prince Mihály Apafi or György Bánffy, governor of Transylvania.
The Oriental rug became popular among Saxon patricians and Hungarian nobility, as well. The number of pieces in the possession of guilds is also mentioned and the inscriptions on the ends of the carpets testify that a number of middle class citizens also owned valuable pieces.
Since these objects have always been highly valued, serious collections were formed throughout the centuries. The most prominent example of this is the Teleki Collection, housed at Gernyeszeg Castle near Marosvásárhely until the first third of the 20th century. During the last hundred years though, all collections in the hands of both Hungarian nobility and church practically disappeared. 

Several carpets ended up in church ownership through donations or wills by the churchgoers, members or guilds. At the beginning of the 20th century, more than 600 carpets were numbered in more than 60 Saxon and 50 Hungarian churches but several bourgeois apartments were also decorated with old rugs.
It is unknown that old carpets anywhere in the world would have been preserved in such good conditions. This is most likely because the pieces in the possession of churches were highly valued and appreciated. Therefore, they were not thrown on the floor; they were not treaded upon and were cared for. The lighting and the climatic conditions of a church were usually ideal and all that contributed to the preservation of their state. During the Transylvanian state or the Reformation, the carpets have already been present in the churches. In many cases, the name of the owner was marked in the pews. We also have proof of a custom namely when a governor visited a town, the inhabitants hung their rugs on the facades in a sign of honor.  
The decline of the age of carpets and the fall of the Transylvanian authority happened at the same time. The importance of the former commercial routes decreased, and the Ottoman Empire lost its strength. The carpet slowly started to be forgotten and was outdated. The main commercial routes avoided Transylvania. However, the rugs that had arrived previously survived miraculously.
100-150 years later the carpet was rediscovered. In the middle of the 19th century at the London Expo (1851), interest was already expressed. The fame and the popularity of the Turkish pavilion was huge and the attention slowly turned towards the Transylvanian rugs, as well. 24 pieces of the collection of Arnold Ipolyi, Roman Catholic bishop of Nagyvárad was exhibited at the Museum of Applied Arts in 1886 of which 18 pieces were Turkish antique rugs.

The first internationally acclaimed Ottoman-Turkish carpet exhibition was held in Budapest, ninety-six years ago, in 1914. It was a revelation in its time because this happened to be the very first thematic carpet exhibition. Domokos Teleki who was a carpet collector himself and owned the largest collection at the beginning of the century, drew attention to this plentiful material and its potentials. Through his financial support and the professional backing of the director of the Museum of Applied Arts at that time, Jenő Radisics the organization started. Károly Csányi, the organizer of the exhibition played a crucial role in this process. He spent nine weeks mapping and borrowing the Transylvanian material necessary for the exhibition with Teleki by car, train and carriage, on two trips. They identified more than six hundred pieces. Several of these rugs were displayed. Half of them came from Protestant churches, thirty percent from private collections and the remaining twenty percent from museums. 352 carpets were displayed at the exhibition!

The Ottoman-Turkish carpet art was again placed in the limelight internationally through this exhibition. A Brasov textile mill owner, Emil Schmutzler had a book published in Leipzig in the 1930s titled “Old-oriental Carpets in Transylvania” (Altorientalische teppische in Siebenbürgen) in which he described 440 rugs. Fifty-five large photos of extraordinary quality were also published in the book. Until the end of the 20th century, this was the only significant professional elaboration on the unparalleled Transylvanian material.
After the publication of Schmutzler’s book World War 2 interfered (and in which the majority of his books perished) and then there was a long silence.

Following the political transition, the Transylvanian carpet slowly drew attention to itself once more. As a result of the enduring and devoted four year long work by Stefan Ionescu, a Romanian engineer living in Rome a superb book was completed in English, German, Romanian and Hungarian on the Transylvanian collections, titled “Transylvanian Ottoman Carpets”.
The First Carpet Association of Budapest was founded. Something has started. We can only hope that an unparalleled treasure that is better known internationally than in Hungary will be in the focus of attention once more and will delight those who are interested in beauty and value.