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Item Description / Dealer Expertise
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A Kazakh well-to-do bai has come to buy a tubiteka or takiya, a flat hat often used during ceremonies, or for prayers. Richly dressed in traditional Kazakh costume, his attire and horse suggest that he is a man of means. The Uzbek merchant has a well-stocked stall with proudly displayed Bokhara carpets, korpe mattresses, that are still given as wedding presents today, and a colourful array of hats.
The Bokhara carpet, as with the carpet depicted here, had a design resembling the classical Bokhara pattern, which was said to be inspired by the Russians. ‘Gul’, or rose in Persian, was the name of the most typical Bokhara motif. An octagonal circular design with slightly rounded angles, it was a recognisable motif which would be uniformly repeated across the carpet. The carpets were made by nomads, in great part by the Turkoman tribe of the Tekkeh who lived on the Trans-Caspian steppes. Bokhara carpets which were known for their high quality wool and for being hard wearing, and had a rough red base.
Situated as it was along the great ‘Silk Road’, there was a lively trade of carpets in towns such as Samarkand, with the markets at Bokhara reputedly selling the best. The Uzbekistan carpet trade and its reputation was such that many carpets were also exported to other countries across the world, and the importance of the design of a carpet was apparent in the eastern saying, ‘lay out your carpet, and I will see what is in your heart’.
Carpets were mainly hand woven by women at home, using a sheep’s best spring wool for weaving. Natural dyes were used to colour the yarn and would be derived from plants, minerals and insects. In order to create the plant dyes, most parts of the plant would be used, including the flowers, leaves, stems or roots. Most commonly, madder was used for beige and brown colours, pomegranate to create pink and red, indigo for blues, sparak flowers for yellows, and crushed cochineal beetles for red. Wonderful silk and gold embroidered carpets were sometimes created at the palace workshops. Millions of silkworm cocoons would be required to make just one carpet. Their expense was enormous, and they were used to decorate the palace’s halls and the Emir’s apartments, as well as providing presents for foreign rulers.
Alexei Vladimirovich Issupoff’s Samarkand Market carries on the work of the Peredvizhniki group, or ‘The Wanderers’, of the late nineteenth century, and displays the rich diversity of cultures and spectacular architecture of this city, recalling in some ways the work of Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944). In particular, the wonderful display of brightly coloured hats and splendid array of materials and carpets that the Uzbek merchant has on offer are reminiscent of Gorskii’s Fabric Merchants in the Registan, Samarkand.
Gorskii was an early twentieth century Russian photographer and researcher, to whom the production of ground breaking experimental colour photographic prints has been attributed. In the early 1900s, and with the support of Tsar Nicholas II, Prokudin-Gorskii formulated a plan to document the Russian Empire, applying the advances he had made in colour photography. Complete with a specially equipped railroad car, fitted with a darkroom, he accessed areas of the Empire that had been restricted, and completed surveys of eleven regions between 1909 and 1912, and again in 1915.
He created a varied visual record of the Russian Empire at its peak, photographing and capturing its people, culture, architecture, landscape and scenery, from the Caucasus to Central Asia. His photographs of Central Asia included cities such as Bokhara and of course Samarkand, producing nearly 170 images of Samarkand alone. His subject matter in the region included the Emir of Bukhara, Imam Shamil’s people, the various mosques and Madrasahs, Gur-e-Emir (the Mausoleum of Tamerlane, or Timur Leng), as well as a variety of ethnicities such as Kazakh nomads, Jewish children with their teacher, and Daghestani tribesmen. Collectively, Gorskii created a unique set of colour photographs of the Russian Empire on the eve of the October Revolution in 1917.
Perhaps aware of Gorskii’s work, Alexei Vladimirovich Issupoff’s interest in the city of Samarkand may have been aroused. Painted between 1918 and 1921, Samarkand Market is a direct testimony to Issupoff’s own fascination with the cultural climate of Central Asia. However it goes a step beyond the substantial body of photographs of Samarkand that Gorskii produced, by truly bringing to life the colours and existence of the city. By looking at other examples of Issupoff’s work, one can truly appreciate the superb vibrancy and lively colour of Issupoff’s paintings of Samarkand, which provide an insight into the intriguing history of this unique Central Asian city.
Samarkand lies in a vast oasis in south-eastern Uzbekistan. It is its second largest city and is one of the earliest centres of civilisation in Central Asia, prospering from its location, midway along the trade route known as the ‘Silk Road’ between China and Europe. At certain points throughout history Samarkand has been one of the greatest cities of Central Asia. ‘The gem of the Orient’, Samarkand was founded as ancient Afrasiab by the Persians in c.700 BC, and was one of the main centers of Persian civilization from its early days. In the fourth century BC, Alexander the Great, after marrying a local chieftain’s daughter, made Samarkand his capital, and introduced Hellenic culture to the region. It was during this period that Samarkand became a sizeable city with a crowded population and developed crafts, trade, and culture; along with the Uzbekistan cities of Bukhara and Khiva, it had become an important link along the ‘Silk Road’. From the sixth to the thirteenth centuries the town grew larger and more populous than modern Samarkand and was controlled, in turn, by the Western Turks, Arabs and many other armies, before being sacked by the Mongols under Genghis Khan in 1220. In the fourteenth century, the city experienced a period of growth and splendour as the capital of the Timurid Empire. The war-lord Timur took Samarkand from the Mongols in 1369 and established his capital there. He brought the most gifted builders of the time to the city, making Samarkand dazzle with the splendour of magnificent new buildings and creating a new international style now known as the Timurid style of architecture. This exerted great influence on the development of later Islamic architecture.
After Timur’s death his empire was handed down to his children and subsequently his grandchildren. The ownership of Samarkand and its bordering areas eventually fell to Ulugh Beg, Timur’s grandson. At the tender age of fifteen Ulugh Beg became ruler of the city of Samarkand, which he ruled for forty years, as well as being ruler of the province of Maverannakhr. In 1447 he succeeded his father, Shahrukh, to the throne but was assassinated two years later in a coup by his own son. During his reign, Ulugh Beg became known as a peace loving ruler and a great scientist, astronomer and mathematician. He brought in many scientists from a range of countries and set about turning the city of Samarkand into an intellectual centre for the empire, building the Ulugh Beg Madrasah and the Gurkhani Zij observatory in 1428.
In 1499 the Uzbeks took control of Samarkand, but moved their capital to Bokhara and consequently Samarkand went into decline. By the eighteenth century the city had been abandoned, shortly after a devastating assault by Persia. Years later, Samarkand came under Russian rule when the citadel was taken by force under Colonel Alexander Abramov in 1868. Abramov became the first Governor of the Military Okrug, which the Russians established along the course of the River Zeravshan, with Samarkand as the administrative centre. The Russian section of the city was built after this point, largely to the west of the old city. The city later became the capital of the Samarkand Oblast of Russian Turkestan, it then further grew in importance when the Trans-Caspian railway reached the city in 1888.
Issupoff was a Russian painter and graphic artist. He studied at the Moscow College of Art, Sculpture and Architecture, and in the studios of A. Arkhipov, V. Serov, K. Korovin and A. Vasnetsov. From 1913 he participated in many exhibitions before moving to Italy in 1926 where he became a well known artist. He had a series of four personal exhibitions in Rome from 1927 through to 1945, then in Milan (1929-31), Bergamo (1935) and Turin (1937). He also exhibited in France, Holland and Belgium. Issupoff painted portraits, landscapes, still life and genre scenes. A decade after his death in 1957, and in accordance with his will, the artist’s wife brought many paintings by Issupoff to Moscow and donated them to the Kiev Museum of Arts.
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