Saturday 11 June and Sunday 12 June, 1 pm - 6 pm each day

To coincide with the 2005 HALI Fair, Hali magazine have announced a programme of lectures in memory of Robert Pinner (1925-2004), one of the founders of HALI magazine.

The HALI Fair: Carpets, Textiles and Tribal Art takes place from 9th to 19th June 2005 at the National Hall Olympia Exhibition Centre in London.

The lectures will take place in the Club Room on the Gallery Level of the National Hall, overlooking the HALI Fair.

Admission to the Pinner Lectures is free to all ticket-holders for the HALI and Fine Arts Fairs, but space in the lecture theatre is limited.

Each talk will last approximately 30-40 minutes.

Sponsored by Textile & Art Publications and HALI With help from Cornucopia, Rippon Boswell Wiesbaden and Sotheby's.

[See two earlier posts today for details of the lecture programme and biographies of the illustrious speakers. This is not an event to be missed if you can make it to London during the Hali fair].

Mr. Karimi & Mr. Yazdi at Iran Carpet Co. have announced that there will be an important exhibition of Persian Carpets at the Bource de Commerce in Paris from May 17 till May 22, 2005.

This presentation of the best of Iranian carpets has been vetted by a group of experts of Exporters Association in Iran. Last year the exhibition was outstanding and this year promises to be better.

Thanks to Barry O'Connell for passing this info on.

Rippon Boswell Germany's Grosse Fruehjahrsauktion - with full colour printed catalogue just received at World Rugs. (The last RB Germany sale was promoted mainly via a CD-ROM distribution of their online catalogue, the shape of things to come we think when catalogue printing costs add in such a massive overhead that is an enterprise-killer to specialist auctioneers even as successful as Rippon Boswell)

First impressions: not great. Looks a somewhat humdrum collection. Nothing at all spectacular, nothing major (by RB Germany's standards) and only a few items of even passing interest.

There's what looks like a nice Pinwheel Kazak (Lot 101 - estimate 9,000 euros), but for some reason these seem to have lost their market - a great on at the recent Sotheby's London sale was among the few items in that over-estimate beanfest not to sell.

Older, more beautiful, but considerably more battered is what was once a lovely Fachralo Kazak prayer rug in the Kaffel class (Nr 70 - estimate 7,500 euros), and in possibly even worse shape is what looks to be an extremely early Sarouk prayer rug although unlikely to predate 1880 CE, despite the Mitte 19. Jhdt. dating of the catalogue (Nr. 84 - est. 9000 euros).

There's a terrific Shahsevan Djidjim (Nr 87 - est. 6,400 euros) - we are really into these colorful minimalist stripy textiles at present - also, a rather wierd but undoubtedly quite rare and no more than marginally ugly silk Heriz prayer rug (nr 77 - est 18,000 euros) and an almost-pretty heavily inscribed Malayer (nr 76 - est 8,000 euros) and a very unusual, powerful and extremely ugly weeping willow and medallion Bijar carpet (Nr 31 - 8,800 euros).

The highest estimate appears to be 24,000 euros for an early, circa 1800, worn and reduced Kansu carpet, while a sharp little Baluch soffreh, Nr. 74, attracts a rather optimistic 5,500 euros. A very attractive and rare Akstafa in a vertically striped design with animals and kotshak boxes in the border looks cheap in comparison with its 6,500 estimate, as indeed does a standard but all-there Tekke khalyk (nr 142) at 8,000 euros (which would have fetched at least 12 grand or more in the khalyk heyday of the late 1980s)

Very Wiesbaden are a big Gerus wagireh, (Lot 163) worn out but ultra funky, no steal at 16,500 euro estimate, a groovy Yomut mafrash (Nr 93) at a stunning 12,500 euro estimate, and a cool 'Eagle Group' (nee Imreli) torba Lot 42 at a more reasonable 6,600 euros estimate.

And that is pretty much it, at a first glance. I personally liked a brutal looking Uzbek main carpet, nr 95 (estimate 7,000 euros) but maybe not to every taste. And these rest is just about what you would expect to find in Wiesbaden in the summer. Maybe there is some thing that we've missed....