Besim: Over the past decades, the name Adil Besim has come to be associated with the highest quality and integrity in the trade with hand-knotted, natural coloured, antique Oriental carpets. On Tuesday, June 19th, 2018, Dorotheum Vienna will auction off the unparalleled private collection of the Viennese carpet dealer dynasty, Besim. All with highly attractive starting bids. The Adil Besim Collection includes a series of old and antique knotted carpets and textiles of particular beauty, a total of approximately 150 rare items, collected since 1946, by the company's founder Adil and his son Ferdi Besim.
 
Carpets as dear as children
Ferdi Besim describes the collection in the preface of the catalogue: „My father enjoyed putting aside several high-quality pieces from among his numerous imports and would then go on to treat them as if they were his children, rather than selling them on. Over the course of decades, this resulted in a respectable collection of singular old and antique items, most of which remained the property of the family".
 
Highlight bird-design ushak
The auction's absolute highlight will be a Selendi, also known as a bird-design ushak, a large 16th/17th century West-Anatolian carpet measuring 336 (340) x 200 cm. It originally came from an Austrian private collection and has been estimated at a starting bid of 500,000 Euro based on its rarity and owing to its excellent state of preservation. World-wide, only approximately 100 such carpets are thought to exist, and only a few are a comparable size to the one offered at the upcoming Dorotheum auction. Carpets of this type can be found in the paintings of Hans Mielich (16th cent.), Alessandro Varotari and Peter Candid (17th cent.); the Austrian Museum of Applied Art (MAK) owns a fragment of such a carpet (formerly part of the Bode Collection), while the Florence Bargello owns another example (ca. 390 x 240 cm). The largest such carpet is currently in Assisi (ca. 527 x 247 cm). From the 19th century are a West Persian Saruk Ferahan (starting bid € 6,000), an Ersari Beshir Tshowal from South Turkestan (starting bid € 1,600), as well as an English Axminster measuring an imposing 5 x 4 m (starting bid € 22,000).
 
Adil Besim
The Viennese carpet company Adil Besim was originally founded in 1946. As a young engineer, Adolf Böhm moved to Turkey in 1923, married an Armenian and changed his name to Böhm-Besim. Now three generations later, the family has built up a sterling reputation among collectors as dealers in Oriental carpets and textiles, with Osmar Besim as the current managing director.

ADIL BESIM COLLECTION
Auction date Tuesday, June 19th, 2018, 5:00 pm
Public viewing from June 13th, 2018
Signing session: Ferdi Besim will sign his books "Mythos und Mystik" on the history of carpets and textiles and will be available for questions Saturday, June 16th, 2018, 2:00 to 5:00 pm
Specialist Wolfgang Matschek, Tel. +43-1-515 60-314, wolfgang.matschek@dorotheum.at