GUEST: I acquired both of these from a household sale, although I got them at different times. The one nearest to you was the first one that I bought, and then this one is the second one that I bought.
APPRAISER: Was there anything in particular that drew you to these items?
GUEST: I just bought these because I liked the looks of them, and I have a room with knotty pine paneling, and I thought they would look nice hanging up there.
APPRAISER: Mm-hmm, I'm sure they do. I'll give you a little bit of background on them. These are what are known as Qashqai bag faces. They come from the Fars district, which is in southern Persia, and they date from around the turn of the century. Now, I guess if we really wanted to simplify things, we could break down all weavings into products that are made for commercial purposes and products that are actually made for usage. Now, these two items here were made for usage by the weavers. When this item was originally woven, it would have a kilim, or flat-woven backing on it, therefore making these a closed bag. And up at the top there'd be a series of loops that they would place through these slits, and they'd be able to fasten items and store them. So this was an item that they used in their everyday life. Also since these are from a nomadic nature, you can see that they are some very crude interpretations of things that they dealt with in their everyday lives. As you can see, there are some goats over here and some very stylized interpretations of flowers or rosettes. What they like to do with these today is they like to make pillows out of them. They'll put another backing on them. They make great pillows. Today in the auction market I think an item like this would bring between $1,500 and $2,000 for the two of them.
GUEST: Oh, my goodness...surprise. Thank you.
