Adana, South-Eastern Anatolia. At the top of the kilim, woven into the wool, a date: Mart 1965. March 1965. The weaver wanted time to be stated, wanted it known exactly when her hands laid down the final thread. Across its 310 x 190 cm (10'2" × 6'3"), large multicoloured butterflies, fuchsia pink, orange, yellow and lilac, bloom freely on a deep bordeaux red ground, with a fantasy and a freedom one finds nowhere else. Assembled from two separately woven panels, the slight difference in tone between them is the dyer's signature, a mark of authenticity that cannot be reproduced.
Sixty years have passed. The butterflies are still there.
