The cost of art objects in general and those of black art in particular, has increased during the last thirty years at a dizzying rate.  Following the law of supply and demand, quality pieces have reached prices today that were unimaginable only a few years ago.  For example, in 1966 at the Helena Rubinstein auction, for which I was engaged as the expert, acquired a Fang head for $22,000.  This had been purchased for about $9,500 before the war by the Princess Gourielli.  Several weeks later, a Swiss collector offered me $35,000.  Today (1974) I have offers varying between $80,000 and $100,000 for it.

Kaitag is a small district in Daghestan's mountains. It consists essentially of two villages, and probably never had a total population much over 7,000 people. Spectacular silk embroideries were produced there from at least the 17th century to the early 20th century.

Kaitag embroideries are done on a cotton ground, usually around 2' x 4', made of several pieces joined together before being embroidered with silk floss. The embroidery technique is relatively unusual, the floss being laid onto the surface of the ground cloth in parallel lines and then tacked down (couched). This results in nearly all the silk being on the same side of the textile, with very little of it visible on the back side. The style of drawing is also quite characteristic, tending to be highly irregular and fluid, rather than angular. The embroideries were apparently made for three broad classes of use, and reasonable guesses of which use a particular one had may be made from the designs on it.

How many times have we heard that oriental rugs make great investments. Do they? There are certainly many that have been. One that is fairly well known is the Salor tent bag that went through the hands of a couple of dealers before a third one recognized it for what it was, bought it for less than $1,000, and made a killing on it. Another is the Saryk torba that languished with a $300 price tag in a New Orleans antique shop for many years, then found its way to Skinner's in Boston a few years ago and sold for over $23,000 (this piece was included in the ICOC "Atlantic Collections" catalog). Tales like these are enough to give many a customer visions of a retirement nest egg with aesthetics (do monthly statements from stock brokers and mutual funds have that!). How realistic is the prospect that you can get finds like those often enough to accumulate wealth by buying rugs? Not very much better than hitting the lottery, maybe even worse.

What is a prayer rug, anyway? There's probably nobody reading this who doesn't think he knows what a prayer rug is. More likely than not, every one of you is correct. Sort of. Let me explain.

A Muslim must pray five times every day. He can do this at a mosque, but that isn't a requirement. However, he must face Mecca (not necessarily east, as is often supposed) while doing so, and must have a clean place (not defiled by having been walked on with shoes or dirty feet) on which to kneel in prayer. Thus, any clean surface that can be placed on the floor is a prayer rug. A newspaper or a towel can meet the definition, although using a pile rug or kilim is more common.

One of the questions that seems to keep coming up is, "How can someone tell whether a rug's dyes are natural or synthetic?" We might first ask why it makes any difference. Although most rug collectors agree that natural dyes are more attractive than synthetics, knowing whether a particular color came from a plant extract or from an organic chemical laboratory shouldn't change the aesthetics one whit. The real reason for caring is, or ought to be, that old rugs are worth a lot more than new ones are (all other things being equal), and knowing whether the dyes are natural or synthetic helps us estimate a rug's age and market value.