About
Welcome to NomadicKnotsatGILLES BOTBYLCape Town, South AfricaWhere passion meets craftsmanship
The Collection consists of some 150 pieces. Each one selected for its design, colour and construction: but above all, for its immediate and personal appeal whether from a strictly traditional or strikingly individual or artistic perspective.
Introducing the Collection
OUR STORY
Preserving Tradition
Underlying the passion and selection criteria that informs the collection as a whole are the words of
A U Pope, Brian Murphy & Walter B. Denny
"Because the eye can in a moment encompass the whole surface of a rug it is assumed that it can be seen at a glance. But no worthy piece gives up its meaning [personal significance and allure] so lightly. Its inner beauty is revealed only to a sympathetic and leisurely observation which knows how to read the pattern. The finer examples are often as elaborately composed as a symphony and as sensitively organised as a sonnet." (1926)*
A U Pope
*Quoted by Jon Thompson, Carpets: An Introduction, p.156. Laurence King Publishing, London, 1993.
"Do you see carpets as a kind of music that you reproduce with colours?"
"Carpets do have a song. It's an inner song. There is no right way to sing a song. There's no right way to see a carpet. So it's an inner song that everyone has."
Brian Murphy
Summary of a conversation the author had with a carpet weaver.
Brian Murphy, The Root of Wild Madder: Chasing the History, Mystery and Lore of the Persian Carpet, p.182. Simon & Schuster, New York, 2005
"Compromises, mistakes, abandoned ideas, changes in the width of borders or the colours of motifs, and improvisations to avoid knotting one's self into a corner - they are all there for us to see. In this sense, reading the design of a carpet is almost like taking a seat on the bench next to the weaver. It gives village and nomadic carpets a sense of human scale, human creativity, and, yes even human frailty that adds immensely to our enjoyment of the carpet as a beautiful work of art."
Walter B. Denny
Walter B. Denny, How to read Islamic Carpets, p.31.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2014
