P&A Antique Textile, Carpet and Tribal Art Fair

Sunday 9th June 2013

Venue ( Where we will be participating ):
Olympia Hilton Hotel, 380 Kensington High Street, London W14 8NL

Link
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January 2013 Acquisition of old carpet catalogues

We have been fortunate in adding to our archives several fascinating early 20th cent London carpet catalogues with ephemera and price lists etc. These give a remarkable insight into the dynamic oriental carpet retail scene in the Edwardian era and 1920s. Selected material from these will be added to our reference lists GB & Eire Oriental carpet dealers 1792 - 1951 at a later date.

Catalogues from Celebes Ltd. and Cardinal & Harford ( founded 1792 )

September 2012 Anna Karenina Film Release


Director Joe Wright on the set at Shepperton with Keira Knightley.

Anna Karenina is a costume drama movie to be released on 7 Sept 2012 in UK adapted from Leo Tolstoy’s 1877 novel. Starring Keira Knightley, Jude Law, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson it was directed by Joe Wright. Textiles and costume for the set were supplied by us to Working Title Films at the nearby Shepperton Studios and another location at the British end of the production.
See lower right column across and below April 2012 item Gift to Ditchling Museum
Trailer

July 2012 London Dontation to Victoria and Albert Museum

A Balouch Brahoui supplementary weft flatweave has been given in memory of Roy Short 1946/2012 the former principal lecturer in mathematical sciences at De Montfort University, Leicester. Provenance his collection. Our present unit at Portobello Road was shared with Dr.Short at his kind invitation. He is sadly missed.

This now makes a tally of three of this type we have donated to the V&A’s famous Balouch collection. Two similar older items of Pak.Balouchistan / Southern Helmand were given in 1999. These earlier items T.599-1999 and T.600-1999 were sourced via Quetta, Pakistan in the early 1980s.
V&A collection T.599-1999


detail

May 2012 Intriguing discovery from the early 1920s


We found this card in a recently purchased copy of Harley Clark’s famous and much loved book Bokhara,Turkoman and Carpets of Afghanistan published 1922. On the reverse side of the hand written card is a receipt in Ababic and English dated 1923 describing the purchase of a ” Bokhara Curtain ” almost certainly a Suzani embroidery bought en-route from British India in the Port Said branch of Chellaram’s.

NB _Inside the book is an intriguing dedication handwritten by the American journalist John Kimberly Mumford (1863 - 1926)

9 March - 14 July 2013 V&A London Exhibition


This remarkable early 17th cent painting probably by Szymon Boguszowick is currently on show at the V&As latest exhibition Treasures of the Royal Courts featuring a Kremlin floor littered with Lotto and Cairene carpets. The scene depicts the Tsar receiving a delegation in the faceted Hall of the Moscow Kremlin. V&A Exhibition

February 2013 Appleton Bros End of an era

The stalwart family wool business essential to generations of oriental carpet repairers and dealers is changing hands and moving from its fifty year + home at Chiswick. The building nestles in the Fullers Brewery complex at Hogarth Roundabout on London’s Great West Road.

Going into the building through unlocked doors one steps back in time through the stockrooms on three stories obtained by caste iron staircases. In the office the typewriter keys are still thudding on paper with an abundance brown paper and string strewn about giving the impression of much postal supply and correspondence. Despite the main focus for orders being home embroidery the demands by oriental repairers obliged the owners to dye specific shades and dark brown and reds in particular.

All of Appleton’s materials are all sourced spun and dyed in Yorkshire. The business will continue since it is being taken up by an enthusiastic previous customer based in Oxon. All customers on file will be advised meanwhile anyone wishing to partake of a little bit of history should hurry down to Chiswick by the end of February.
The retiring proprietor having assumed the business from his Uncle now wishes to embark on a career in popular beat music after forty years in the building.

Appleton Bros, Thames Works, Church Street, Chiswick, London

3D Tabriz rugs


Now that we have 3D cinema why not 3D Persian rugs? This is the latest wheeze dreamt up by those ever resourceful Tabrizi merchants. Found whilst trawling Iranian Facebook

Anatolian Kurdish goathair tent gets an outing in Australia


One of two tents obtained in the 1980s has recently been given an airing by Milton and Ann Cater near Byron Bay NSW Australia. The other sibling tent was donated to the Josephine Powell collection previously housed at the old Imperial Mint (Darphane-i Âmire) located in the first courtyard of the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. Now probably transferred to either Koç Collection or Turk ve Islam Museum. There may be a similar tent in London’s Horniman Museum which were acquired around the same time by Ken Teague emeritus assistant keeper. The Horniman Museum has had a long-standing interest in former and present-day nomadic societies. Systematic collections of nomadic material culture from several parts of the world have been developed as a result of the Museum’s collecting policy.

July 2012 THE DARK KNIGHT RISES Batman film release


During 2011 we supplied material and costume to Hollywood’s latest epic yarn of the comic strip caped crusader hero Batman. In particular the odd costume in the prison scenes which were filmed in the UK and elsewhere under the working title of Magnus Rex . Now on general release it is the concluding film of a trilogy and directed by Christopher Nolan ( pictured above ).
Trailer

April 2012 Donation to Ditchling Museum

The donation consists of a half shawl brought from Russia by the famous textile craftswoman and artist Ethel Mairet 1872 - 1952. The item came with an attached yellow label in her own handwriting. This half piece came with two other very similar complete twinned or double shawls one of which was recently acquired for the set of a forthcoming Warner epic Tolstoy film Anna Kerenina
The second complete double shawl is presently in a private collection in California. Other Russian linen and linen damask items from the same source was donated to the reference collection at Farnham Art College UCA

Ditchling is a small village to the north side of the Southdown hills, near Brighton, Sussex. Ditchling was famous due to the artists community which included Brangwyn, Gill etc in the 1920s. Some their works and detailed life histories can be seen at the soon to be restored local Ditchling Museum.