"Worm
Dangling from the mouth of a bird"
The New York Hajji Baba are having a 75th
anniversary exhibition called "Timbuktu To
Tibet," at the New York
Historical Society. The
gang at Turkotek is having a salon on the show
and Dr. James Blanchard the rug collector from
Bangalore India posted praise of a piece
catalogued as "Turkmen Fragment, Central
Asia, 18th or 19th Century (Harold
Keshishian)". It quickly generated 8 replies
and when I mentioned it to Harold he told me the
rest of the story. In the late 70s Harold was
visiting one of the younger Asadourian brothers
(Hagop or Krikor’s son) shop at 276 5th Ave
in New York City. In a 4 foot high pile of
fragments Harold found this and two other
fragments of a very old very worn Turkmen Main
Carpet. Try as he might Harold could not find the
other half of his elim. So when he left who
should Harold run in to but the
great German Rug Scholar and friend Dr. Ulrich
Schurmann. Harold", Schurmann
said, "What is that in your hand".
After seeing Harold's find Schurmann
returned to the shop and did not leave until he
located the other half of the elim which is
published in Werner Loges, Turkmen Tribal Rugs,
plate 48, 1980.
At a later date Schurmann
was visiting with Harold at his Washington DC
place when they had a chance to look at this
piece again. Starting early in the morning with a
stack of rugs and a fifth of vodka Schurmann
began his studies. A few hours into the process
Dr. Ulrich
Schurmann declared with all possible Teutonic
authoritative certainty that these designs were
of "worm dangling from the mouth of a
bird". Harold has admitted to me that he has
never been able to make out either the birds or
the worms and he has no intention of imbibing
enough vodka to make it possible.
This piece is one piece and the
borders as they were in the carpet. It is about
half of an elim of a Drynak Gul carpet that was
about 8 foot across.
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