The Kossow Collection

In 1963 the Kossow family began to compile one of the most comprehensive collections of South West Persian tribal rugs in existence, and possibly the most important one in private hands. This thematic collection is published here for the first time. It comprises the entire range of woven and knotted pieces produced by the tribal groups that inhabited Fars province, from everyday items such as pack bands, decorative bands, cargo and storage bags in various formats through kilims and other flatweaves to rare and precious knotted carpets, once the pride of their original owners as prestige objects and status symbols. The collection also includes a substantial group of horse and saddle covers.

Professor Klaus Dieter Kossow first discovered his fascination with Oriental textile art when studying medicine and psychology in Hamburg. Soon after his arrival he established close contacts with fellow students from Persia who had brought with them woven fabrics, kilims, nomad household utensils and rugs to help fund their studies in Germany. Klaus Dieter Kossow purchased his first objects at that time. After graduation he set up his own practice as a doctor and psychotherapist, took the chair of a medical association, acted as consultant to major companies and the Federal Ministry of Health, organised scientific seminars and lectured at university. He travelled widely in Europe and the United States, visited Oriental countries and gained personal experience of the life of Qashqa’i nomads. Wherever he went he made contact with leading collectors and dealers, purchasing important examples from them. The funds then at his disposal allowed him to acquire even the most exclusive objects in his collecting field. His family, who themselves look back on a long weaving tradition, provided expert advice to guide his collecting passion, and purchasing decisions were a family affair. Based in East Westphalia, the Kossow family was closely associated with textiles not least because flax was grown and handwoven into fine linen fabrics on their own estate. In the post-war period, until ca. 1955, the German weaving tradition saw its last heyday due to the collapse of the textile industry in the aftermath of the war. Professor Kossow remembers that he was involved in the manufacturing process himself as a young boy. His deep appreciation of Oriental textiles and practical knowledge of their structural idiosyncrasies probably date back to that period. Ultimately, the Kossow Collection goes back to a family weaving tradition on a German estate, where flax was grown and refined into linen, and to the childhood memories of a collector raised in that environment. Now the collection is for sale as the next generation of the Kossow family wishes to pursue other interests.

As regards the significance of the collection, Cyrus Parham, one of the leading experts in Persian tribal history and art, wrote the following comment in his publication, “Masterpieces of Fars Rugs” (Tehran 1996, p. 10, translated from Persian): “The largest private collection of Fars rugs outside Iran belongs to Professor Klaus Dieter Kossow, a German psychotherapist. Professor Kossow’s outstanding collection of rugs and textiles includes some of the most important jewels of Fars carpet weaving. Professor Kossow’s collection also merits mention as it comprises a wide range of everyday nomadic items, including the best surviving Baharlu, Ainalu, Luri, Arabi, Bolvardi and Nafar pieces.”

Items of artistic value can only be preserved for future generations if we study them with the determination to recognise their importance, if we appreciate them and take care to protect them appropriately. The forthcoming auction ensures such appreciation, and similar considerations informed the Kossow family’s decision to offer its textile treasures to the public.

The Kossow Collection comprises a representative cross-section of South West Persian tribal weaving, together with additional examples from neighbouring regions purchased to complete the range. It is one of the most comprehensive collections of its kind. However, even a collection numbering far more items would not cover all examples. Examination of the published body of rugs and flatweaves produced by the Qashqa’i, Khamseh, Luri and their many sub-tribes reveals a confusing array of rug and flatweave types, designs and techniques. A comparative range of variations is only encountered in Kurdish pieces. Attribution of individual pieces to specific tribal groups is sometimes straightforward but often difficult, uncertain or impossible. Their makers, long dead, can obviously not be consulted, nor did they leave written records. Oral records provided by living members of the tribes or Iranian dealers have often proved unreliable. In tribal pieces we always have to contend with mutual influences and design transfers. Nomadic groups would live as a unit for a while but then part company again. Women marrying into a different tribe brought their own ideas, and were influenced by the existing tradition in their turn. In Turkmen rugs, currently the best researched tribal pieces made in the Orient, structural analysis has paved the way for future research and enabled more precise attributions. Despite many valuable observations provided by various authors who have studied the subject, to date similar examinations have not been systematically conducted for tribal rugs from Fars. Two further important factors that may offer clues for attribution are also insufficiently researched: the dyes and the pile or weaving material used for the various pieces. Iranian wool specialists, often old men with a lifetime of experience, are able to distinguish wool types and qualities with a precision that astounds us; Europeans literally lack the necessary feel. Unlike Turkmen rugs, where the palette is usually typical of a specific tribe, colour distinctions are less pronounced in Fars pieces. They will only be apparent to those who have had the opportunity of viewing and comparing a large number of examples. However, as antique Fars rugs are seen on the market less and less frequently or are kept in remote locations, opportunities for empirical research are now extremely rare.

The tribes inhabiting Fars province belonged to different ethnic groups. The Qashqa’i are a Turkic people who migrated to Persia from Central Asia a long time ago. Their main tribal groups are the Amaleh, Bolvardi, Darrehshuri, Farsimadan, Kashkuli, Rahimlu and Shishboluki as well as various sub-tribes. The Khamseh (meaning “five” in Arabic) were five tribes who joined forces in a confederation as late as 1860: the Arabi, who had arrived in Fars with the Arab armies in the 7th century, and stayed; the Turkic Ainalu and Baharlu; and the Nafar and Bassiri groups of mixed ethnic origin. The confederation was established at the instigation of the powerful Ghavam family of Shiraz to contain the growing influence of the belligerent Qashqa’i tribes in the region. Ali Muhammad Gavam-ul-Mulk, head of the Gavam family at the time, made himself the first Khamseh supreme tribal leader (Il Khan) and had detachments of mounted Khamseh warriors protect his huge caravans from the constant Qashqa’i raids. All the tribes had their own languages and dialects. The Luri of Fars were an Indo-German group speaking a Persian dialect. Their two main tribes, the Boyer Ahmadi and Mamasani, inhabited the north west of the Qashqa’i territory. In the Chahar Mahal region further north, other Luri groups co-existed with Bakhtiari groups. The Afshars of Kerman province, situated south and south east of Fars, had their own design traditions, but maintained connections with the Fars nomads, resulting in many mutual influences.

Most of the tribal groups of Fars led a semi-nomadic life: they spent autumns and winters in fixed dwellings in the lowlands, beginning their migrations in spring to seek higher pastures that would provide their herds of sheep and goats with water and grazing, and allowed them to escape the unbearable heat of the flat country. During migrations, which could cover a range of up to 600 kilometres, donkeys and camels carried the loads. Armed men were mounted on horses decorated with elaborate covers. Self-sufficiency was a necessity for nomadic people. They grew their own grain crops and vegetables. Their animals provided them with all other necessities of life (milk, butter, meat, wool, skins), and the nomads lived with them in close symbiosis. The many animal representations seen in Fars rugs prove their deeply rooted appreciation for their constant companions. Another major theme encountered in carpet imagery is nature: representations of colourful flowers and luxurious blossoming plants, shrubs and trees, often depicted in the context of a garden design, bear witness to a yearning for paradise on earth – an antithesis to the often barren and monotonous environment in which the nomads lived in harsh conditions. All tribal pieces show traditional designs and patterns with inherent symbolic meanings. None of the patterns and designs are purely “decorative”, all are significant although we are usually unable to read these - often religious or cosmological – messages from an alien world, their iconography remains a mystery to us, and we are unable to interpret the symbols. Members of western cultures, who have lived in fixed settlements since time immemorial, are equally mystified by the nomadic way of life itself. We commonly associate it with homelessness, aimless wanderings and poverty. Based on a lack of knowledge and ignorance, such prejudices are unjustified and prevent us from understanding an alternative and ancient way of life with a legitimacy all its own. Nomadic people, owners of large herds, were not poor. Their lifestyle was adapted to the rhythm of nature. Migrations followed fixed routes, with the purpose of relocating to a different site. Nomads loved their freedom and did not yearn for urban life; on the contrary, ethnological research has shown that nomads held town dwellers in some contempt as they viewed their lifestyle as a kind of imprisonment. Nomads were proud of their independence and well aware of the fact that their support was much needed by Iranian rulers in times of war, when they would supply pack animals for the army or participate in campaigns as mounted auxiliary forces whose courage and brutality would strike their enemies with fear. Anyone wishing to approach the material culture of Fars nomads would be well advised to examine their history and specific lifestyle.

Nomadic tribes produced their weavings primarily for home use, although they also sold or exchanged their pieces at nearby bazaars. Nomads needed to supply themselves with all the goods they were unable to produce themselves: salt, sugar, tea, weapons, other metal objects, gold and silver jewellery. While most of their everyday textiles were used in the home, such as bags, tent, decorative and pack bands, eating cloths (sofrehs), fire blankets (ru khorsi), woollen blankets, kilims and gabbehs, it appears that many of their pile-woven rugs as well as horse and saddle covers served to supplement the family income. Especially elaborate and precious pieces were most often offered for sale. In some, but not all, cases their structure provides a clue as to whether rugs were destined for home use or the market: pieces with a soft handle and a flexible structure were easy to fold and carry, and thus appropriate for migrations, while carpets with a firm knotting structure were better suited for use in houses. Oversized carpets, some of them woven in kelleh formats measuring up to five or six metres, could neither be made nor used in tents. They were produced in small workshops located in the winter settlements. Such splendid pieces were often commissioned by the tribal leaders (khans), or they were tributes, either to the khans themselves or to Persian provincial governors, other high-ranking officials or members of the military. There were also occasions when urban merchants placed commissions with nomads. This was a lucrative business as Fars rugs, especially pieces by Kashkuli weavers who were famous for their skill, were held in high regard in Iran and collected by the wealthy upper class as early as the 19th century. As proven by illustrations in old carpet publications, Fars rugs were also popular collectors’ items in 19th century Europe. In the 19th and well into the 20th centuries, Britain held a dominant position in Iran. It is thus not surprising that many South West Persian carpets came into the possession of British owners. Later they spread all over the world by means of trade and auctions. The disempowerment of nomadic tribes, whose freedom of movement was drastically curtailed during the reign of the first Pahlavi dynasty ruler (Reza I), marked the beginning of their impoverishment and cultural decline. Occasional tribal uprisings against the increasingly effective Tehran central government did not affect this development. Circumstances forced nomad families to sell their textile treasures. Except for a few superficial similarities, the purely commercial production that now exists in Fars province no longer has any connection with the antique examples of cultural and art historic significance made in a bygone era.

We are unable to go into the history and character of individual tribes at this point, and would refer our readers to published literature on the subject. Below we provide a brief list of relevant publications for further study.

The Kossow Collection

Further reading