CHURCH & MUSEUM COLLECTIONS Transylvanian Tale STEFANO IONESCU A four-year project to research and catalogue all 15th to 18th century Ottoman rugs in Transylvania will shortly be published, with extensive colour illustrations, in English, Italian and Romanian editions. The author, who is the driving force behind the project, dicusses its background and discusses one of the rug world’s most intriguing mysteries. partial idea of the extent of this trade. However, it is likely that many thousands of Turkish rugs arrived in Transylvania, of which a substantial number remained there. The Balkan nations and the Romanian principalities south and north of the Danube were also crisscrossed by this trade, and oriental carpets were highly prized in these regions. Why then have they only survived in significant numbers in Transylvania? The reasons for this pheno- menon are associated above all with the ways in which the rugs were used and valued. A crucial factor in their survival was the fact that so many rugs came into the ownership of the Saxon Evangelical Alex Marginean Churches, mainly as pious dona- tions from parishioners, benefact- he churches and museums of the Ottoman Empire. 1. Above: The pulpit ors or guilds. Church communities Transylvania safeguard the Without attempting a resume of in the Black Church, never bought rugs, nor raised cus- Bras¸ov, flanked by Tgreatest legacy of small-format the region’s complex history, we ‘Lotto’, ‘Transylvan- toms duties, and there is no record Ottoman rugs in the Western world: should note that Transylvania (like ian’ and a variety of merchants making such donat- almost four hundred examples inc- the other Romanian principalities of west Anatolian ions. But in the austere and niche rugs luding ‘Holbeins’, Ushaks, ‘Lottos’, of Moldavia and Wallachia) never aniconic spirit of the early Refor- ‘Selendis’ and ‘Transylvanians’, came under direct Turkish occupa- 2. Right: ‘Ghirland- mation, they were considered many in astonishingly good condit- tion. Until 1699 it maintained the aio’ two-medallion decent, and indeed suitable, decor- rug, west Anatolia, ion, attributable to the golden per- status of an autonomous princi- mid-15th century. ation for recently denuded (former iod of Turkish weaving from the pality, paying tribute to the Sublime 1.30 x 1.87m (4'3" x Catholic) churches. And when used 2 mid-15th to the mid-18th century. Porte. By contrast, part of Hungary 6'2"), 840 kn/dm . by parishioners to mark out their Alberto Boralevi No complete explanation has was designated a Pashalik following must be thanked personal space in the church, they ever been provided for this fascin- the Battle of Mohacs in 1526, and for rediscovering also subtly hinted at the wealth ating cultural phenomenon. We was under Turkish occupation for and dating this rug, and prestige of their owners. which is one of the remain challenged by the question over a century and a half. most spectacular Today, while many rugs remain of why so many rugs have survived Surviving documents confirm rugs in the Transyl- the property of the same Saxon in the Reformed Churches of the that the principal way rugs arrived vanian holdings. churches,2 a significant number are The minor ‘S’ chain Saxon minority of Transylvania, in Transylvania was through trade borders are similar also preserved in Romanian who for centuries have shared the with the Turks. The Saxon towns to those on other museum collections and a few in region with a Romanian (Orthodox of BraÎov (Kronstadt) and Sibiu 15th century exam- the Hungarian Reformed churches. ples such as the and Catholic) and a Hungarian (Hermannstadt), on main routes to Dragon and Phoenix The Brukenthal Museum in (Catholic and Calvinist) population. Central Europe, became influential rug in Berlin’s Sibiu has the most important The rugs are an important part of trading centres.1 The trade lasted Islamic Museum; institutional collection in Tran- Schmutzler 1933, the cultural inheritance of Romania from the mid-15th to the end of pl.8. Evangelical sylvania and Romania. It holds 43 as well as being the most significant the 18th century, a period that Church, Hålchiu, classical Turkish rugs, including a repository of Turkish art in south- correlates with the age of the Turk- no. 23 famous small-pattern ‘Holbein’, east Europe, an area for so long ish rugs preserved in Transylvania. (Schmutzler, pl.10). The rugs were under the military domination of Documents only provide a very transferred to the museum around 52 I HALI 137 CHURCH & MUSEUM COLLECTIONS All photos Arpad Udvardi Brashov HALI 137 I 53 CHURCH & MUSEUM COLLECTIONS 1910 from the great Parish Church lished in 1933 by Emil Schmutzler, 3. Left: ‘Transylvan- the collections. He wrote that: and the so-called Asylum Church, a member of a prominent Saxon ian’ six-column rug, “The greedy hands of the merchants tried west Anatolia, mid- both in Sibiu, and from other family from BraÎov and a highly 17th century. 1.15 x in every possible way to lay hold of these minor Saxon parishes. knowledgeable carpet collector. 1.79m (3'9" x 5'10"), objects. When honesty was no longer 2 The History Museum of Transyl- His book is of unique document- 1,300kn/dm . For possible, they bribed the sextons and they many years incor- vania in Cluj-Napoca has a less ary value. Not only did he under- rectly thought to be cut up valuable items so as to remove well-known collection, including take the first complete inventory the rug published them at night through the loopholes of the eleven pre-19th century Ottoman of the collections, identifying 440 as pl.25 in the 1977 fortified church walls”.3 Dall’Oglio reprint rugs, acquired between the end of rugs in over forty Saxon Churches, of Végh & Layer, It is evident that this activity the 19th century and 1914, mostly but he provided a photographic this is a particularly had begun several decades earlier. from northern Transylvania. record of each of the 55 rugs he beautiful example Writing in 1907, Ernst Kühlbrandt of the small group For several generations of rug discussed, enabling a comparison of ‘coupled-column’ stated that during the last decades scholars and enthusiasts, the prim- to be made with the state of each prayer rugs with a of the 19th century “several hundreds ary source of information on the piece some seventy years later. triple-arched niche of rugs were bought by rich collectors designated ‘type I’ 4 Turkish rugs from Transylvania At the time when Schmutzler by May H. Beattie. from Western Europe”. In many cases was Altorientalische Teppiche in Sieben- carried out his research, rugs were This sub-group has we have precise evidence that bürgen, the monumental study pub- already rapidly disappearing from lateral arches with Transylvania found itself serving unindented out- lines, no hanging as a main source not only for ornament or lamp, rugs belonging to the so-called fields that are ‘Transylvanian’ group but also for almost always red, and the bases of other classical Turkish groups such the thin columns as Ushaks, ‘Lottos’ and white- mirror the capitals. ground ‘Selendis’. It is also typical that above the Many of the Turkish rugs in niche there is a Hungarian museums were sourced crenellated frieze in this region. The Christian Mus- and a deep panel with nine to eleven eum in Esztergom holds the import- long-stemmed ant collection of Arnold Ipoly, flowers. The main including 18 Turkish rugs, assem- border is based on a curvilinear dia- bled in the second half of the 19th mond cartouche. century.5 In 1917, six rugs and two Black Church, fragments of a ‘Memling-gül’ Bras¸ov, no.227 carpet belonging to Emil Sigerus, a 4. Right: Selendi historian from Sibiu, were sold to ‘Scorpion’ rug, the Museum of Applied Arts in west Anatolia, mid- 6 17th century. 1.16 x Budapest, which had acquired 1.91m (5'3" x 6'3"), other rugs from the Diocesan 2 620 kn/dm . First Council of Calvinist Churches a published here, this 7 interesting rug, very few years earlier. similar to one in the In Vienna, the Museum of App- Budapest Museum lied Arts holds five Ottoman rugs of Applied Arts, is one of only four acquired in 1907-1908 from known with this B. Grünblatt, a Saxon dealer in rare design. The Sibiu.8 London’s Victoria & Albert bi-colour rosette and hooked leaf Museum also has a double-niche border appears in rug of Transylvanian origin, acces- some ‘Lotto’ rugs. sioned as early as 1889.9 Black Church, Bras¸ov, no.373 It is also highly probable that many Ottoman rugs in private collections in Hungary and Austria came from Transylvanian sources, even if there is now little like- lihood of tracing provenance in most cases. Not only the confiden- tiality of the marketplace but the passage of time and the political upheaval of two World Wars have resulted in the loss of docu- mentary and other evidence. Very occasionally inscriptions identi- fying Saxon donors reveal that a rug was once the property of a Saxon Church in Transylvania.10 54 I HALI 137 CHURCH & MUSEUM COLLECTIONS As far as collections in Britain are concerned, an interesting piece of anecdotal evidence is pro- vided by Edmund de Unger. Writing in the introduction to the 1978 catalogue of the Keir Collec- tion, he recalls how as a young man he bought his first carpet (a Selendi ‘bird’ rug) from a Hungarian Reformed Church near Târgul MureÎ in 1935, while cycling through Transylvania.11 As we assembled documenta- tion for Antique Ottoman Rugs in Transylvania, evidence emerged that shed light on the way in which, as a runner and dealer in antique carpets, Teodor Tuduc played a key role in the depredation of the rug collections held both by churches and individuals in Transylvania between 1930-1960.