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This is the decorated face of a storage sack
(chuval). The complete bag would have had a plain or striped
flatweave back, with the front and back panels sewn together along
the two long sides, leaving one end open. This format is common to
the sacks of northwest Anatolia, as evidenced by illustrations
published by Pinkwart and Steiner
of sacks with the decorative motif seen here that are attributed to
the area between Bergama and Balikesir1. However their discussions
suggest that the plain weave sections between the decorated bands
are usually undecorated multicolor stripes that are generally red
and dark blue. By contrast, the plain weave sections in this chuval
are each a single color – medium red, dark blue, and maroon – and
each is decorated with jijim work. So it is possible that this sack
comes from farther to the east, where the Turkmen peoples who ended
up on the west coast of Anatolia left behind tribal members as they
migrated across Anatolia over the centuries. Indeed, the maroon
color is reminiscent of a shade often seen in weavings in the
Turkish southeast.
The use of cotton for the white figures in the decorated bands
provides a strong visual contrast with the dark blue wool ground.
BRM
1) Pinkwart, D. & Steiner, E., Bergama
çuvallari, Wesel, 1991, pl. 11d, 11f, 30c, 30g
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