Almost 140 carpets and weaves which illustrate the differing designs of the individual tribes that make up the people of Turkmenistan are to be offered by Dorotheum in Vienna on April 9
They come from the collection of a North German aficionado who devoted himself to the study and collection of central Asian nomadic carpets.
The carpets, rugs and weaves, generally dominated by the colour red, served many decorative and symbolic purposes: as saddlebags, tent bands and other wall-hangings at the entrance of the traditional yurt the Turkmen people lived in and as part of a dowry.