Just cleaned this mule saddlebag fora customer in Madison.
Beautiful piece of art. My customer purchased it in Srinigar, which is just north of Kashmir.
When Marco Polo and his contemporaries started traveling the silk route in the year 1271 (or thereabouts) they where mostly looking for silks and spices to resell in Europe. They started noticing very elegantly woven saddlebags and unique tent flaps as they moved through Persia. In that time period, weaving was a purely social event. Families and friends came out after dinner and talked and weaved. When The traders on the silk route discovered how popular (and profitable) these items were in Europe, it became an industry and many of the worlds finest rugs come from that region today.