Hajji Baba Textiles: Beauty Made for the Sole
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/08/AR2009020802290.html?hpid=features1&hpv=national
The Hajji Baba Club was founded in New Jersey on July 9, 1932. Of its five founding members, only one, Arthur Urbane Dilley, a rug dealer and scholar, was what you'd call an expert. All of them were gentlemen. (Women, one explained, did not 'have the correct attitude toward Oriental rugs.') In the midst of the Depression, bargains in fine rugs were plentiful -- for collectors in the know who had the terminology, and a bit of cash to spend. The Hajjis took their name from a picaresque novel -- 'The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan' (1824) -- whose 'Asiatic' hero was at ease in East and West. 'He too was a rogue,' explained Dilley, 'never paying for what he coveted more than ten cents on the dollar. In that respect he is our patron saint.'
Useful links:
www.textilemuseum.org
www.hajji75.org
What makes a carpet beautiful? Colors + Patterns. I love them. Thank you, Paul.
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