A digital archive showcasing the extensive collection of jewellery and adornment images shared on the former Ethnic Jewels Ning site over the years. These images have significantly enriched discussions on cultural adornment and its global dispersion.
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Yes, this is an asyk or sorts. It is well-made, but pretends to look older than it is, and that, I think, is not a good thing, as people might buy it on the supposition that it IS old. If I am wrong, then please show me why I should believe that this is genuinely old.
I agree it is an asyk but I don't see any pretense at all. I don't think you should feel it is old and I don't see a label above it representing it as old. It is a piece of jewelry in the Turkoman tradition -- it should be sold as such and discussed as such.
Of course there is no label to say it is old. That is not how pieces made to look old while they are not are constructed. It would be a very unsophisticated way to market a piece like this. What happens is that a piece is made - rather vaguely - within a particular tradition and given an old appearance. Here that attempt is surely VERY obvious. It is indeed a piece "within the Turkoman tradition", and I am discussing it as such. I do not think it is anything else. But to say that it is part of that tradition does not in any sense compel me to praise it or not to criticise it. It is not an innocuous kind of variant, but very deliberately "antiqued up". If it was made "as new", but within the Turkoman traditioon, it would not have been artificially darkened in the way it has been. It is a piece that will very easily mislead uninformed buyers who think that they are buying an older Turkoman piece. Would you also defend the pieces in the Wolf collection simply because they are in the Turkoman tradition?? I see no creativity here at all - it is a vague but misleading imitation of older pieces.