Figured Rug
date: label: Accession Date
content: 14 Jun 1926
name: label: Donor Name
content: U.S. National Museum
notes: label: Notes
content: This is a flatwoven rug, handwoven in tapestry weave with chicken motif. Handspun single-ply wool (and a stiffer fiber in the warp-- goat hair?). Appears to be all natural dyes. Several repairs. Very "wonky", especially where the borders are attached along the selvage. Very worn and faded, with several repairs.
label: Notes
content: From card: "Figured design passes all the way through the rug. Design is a folk type." [Later note:] "When this specimen was being looked for [by Dr. E. Knez in Feb 1962], none showed up in the collection, but this was the only rug without a number. [It also] corresponds in weave, texture, etc. to others from this country, and the short description above fitted this item. [It has] repeated figures of chickens in different color combinations on tan and gray-green ground, which is ... made of three seperate strips sewn together... Black border along the two long sides. So it appears farily certain that this specimen is the correct one for this catalog number --R. Elder [July, 1962]"
label: Notes
content: Possibly misnumbered. See note on the catalog card. The description of 331659 in the ledger (rug, Tibet, no measurements) and on the card (figured rug, tibet) seems too vague to match up to any particular rug. It could very well be the correct number for the "chicken rug", which does indeed have "figures". But visitors Rupert Smith (collector of Tibetan rugs) and Melissa Keshishian (trustee at the Textile Museum) said that it does not look like it is from Tibet. Of course, it could have been made elsewhere and collected in Tibet, or perhaps it was collected in China (or elsewhere) and misidentified in the ledger book. More investigation needed. The object does have a catalog number tag sewn into it, but apparently it was unnumbered when it was found in the 1960s, so this tag must have been sewn in around that time.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 31 Jul 2020
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Tibet, Asia
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Tibetan (?)
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 092246
label: USNM Number
content: E331659-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Rug