Qarajeh to Quba

Born ten miles west of Manhattan, Raoul ('Mike') Tschebull grew up with his family's unusual old oriental rugs, puzzled over them, had trouble figuring out where and when they were woven. It produced a lifelong interest. As a result, he has been a long-term collector of rugs and related textiles along with his late wife, Ingeborg. After graduating from Colby College in Waterville, Maine, in 1963, for most of his working career he was employed in international banking, substantially in Germany and Spain. He has an extensive record of writing in the field of Eurasian ethnographic textiles, including pile-woven rugs, but is best known for the iconic Finch College Museum of Art exhibition catalogue Kazak (1971). Rug study has brought him into extensive contact with cultural anthropology, as well as a myriad of other disciplines, and has afforded him opportunities to speak on the subject of Eurasian weaving in diverse conferences and symposia from San Francisco to Tehran. An early recipient of the Near Eastern Art Research Center's Joseph V. McMullan Award for scholarship and stewardship in the field of Islamic carpets, he is on the board of directors of the NEARC, which fosters research and publication in the field.