Oriental Antique Rugs and Carpets. Persian Carpets.
Oriental Persian Carpets.
Persian Carpets before 1800.
The origins of pile weaving are obscure, but that it is an ancient skill is proven by a hand-knotted rug found in Pazyryk, southern Siberia, dating from between the 3rd and 5th centuries BC. Fragments of piled weavings (3rd-6th centuries AD) have been found in Xinjiang (eastern Turkestan); others dating mainly from the 13th century have been uncovered at Fostat in Cairo.
By the 13th century rug-weaving was well established it Anatolia and by at least the 15th century pile carpets were mad, in Egypt. Persian carpets are mentioned in 10th-century Aral records, by Marco Polo in the 13th century, and by the 14th-century explorer Ibn Batuta. Paintings of the 14th an( 15th centuries depict weavings similar to early Turkish carpets.
SAFAVID WEAVING
The great trade artery, the Silk Route, ran from Beijing in the east, through eastern and western Turkestan, Persia (Iran), and Turkey, to Europe. Under Timurid rule (1370-1506) Persia established strong links with China, and motifs such as cloudbands, cranes, phoenixes, and dragons were introduced to the Timurid court artists via Chinese textiles and pottery.
The Safavids (1501-1732) conquered Persia in 1501. Tahmasp, the second shah, established royal workshops for weaving carpets and textiles in Kashan, Kirman, Isfahan (now Esfahan), and Tabriz, ushering in the classic age of Persian carpet-weaving. These cities grew into the four great centres of production.
The earliest carpets, from the late 15th to early 16th century, are associated with Tabriz in north-west Persia. They have a large medallion often shaped like a lotus flower with cusped lobes, edged in stylized clouds. cloudbands and arabesques fill the field. As this design developed, the medallion acquired pendants, and animals in combat appeared in the field. Countless variations on this theme are found in 19th- and 20th-century carpets.
The hunting motifs of a magnificent 16th-century silk carpet from the silk-weaving centre Kashan were much borrowed in the 19th and 20th centuries in Tehran, Kirman, Isfahan, and Kashan. The design was popular with mid-20th-century weavers in Qom. Small silk rugs woven in Kashan in the mid-16th century, with a medallion and spandrel design, gave rise to countless modern imitations, many woven in the same city between c.1900 and 1930. In the 17th century, the great Islamic cultural centre of Isfahan in central Persia, under Shah Abbas, produced carpets with all-over designs of vine
tendrils supporting huge palmettes, curled “sickle” or saz leaves (shaped like a scythe blade with a serrated edge), and bold borders. Such designs are often on a strong red ground.
Certain carpets believed to be from Kirman are known as “vase” carpets. Made from the mid-16th to the late 17th century, some pieces depict Chinese-style vases on a trelliswork of vines, palmettes, and leaves. These carpets have a double layer of cotton warps, and three shoots of weft, the middle one silk. All carpets with this unusual structure are called “vase” carpets, even where the vase pattern does not appear. This trellis, palmetto, and leaf pattern was widely copied in the late 19th and 20th centuries.
Many classical Persian carpets were exported to the West, and a great number can now be seen in museums. Wool carpets from Isfahan were popular, as were the silk Polonaise, or Polish, rugs originally thought to come from Poland, but in fact from 17th-century Isfahan. They are woven in bright green, blue, red, and ivory, with brocaded areas in silver or gilt metal (a thin strip of metal was wound around a white or yellow silk thread). Early 20th-century rugs from the Kum Kapi district of Istanbul were inspired by these rugs; modern silk and metal thread rugs from Hereke in Turkey are their distant cousins.
• MAIN CENTRES OF PRODUCTION Kashan, Kirman,
Tabriz, and Isfahan
• SCALE most examples are large carpets, although some small rugs were also produced
• WEAVE most are woven in wool or silk, sometimes with metal thread details; some are woven in silk on a silk and cotton foundation
• DESIGNS early Persian carpets were based on cartoons, many of which were drawn by court artists; the designs of these carpets form the basis of most later Persian weaving patterns
• MOTIFS these include cloudbands, hunting motifs, vegetation (palmettes, vines, lotus-flower-shaped designs, and leaves), cranes, phoenixes, and dragons
Persian Carpets after 1800.
The quality and quantity of Persian weaving declined greatly in the 18th and early 19th centuries compared to the fine traditions established in the 16th and 17th centuries. However, from the mid-19th century there was a revival of interest, mainly generated by a renewed Western fashion for Eastern products. Demand was accelerated by easier travel and trade links together with a new awareness which was to a large degree generated by British colonialism. Two distinct styles of carpet production emerged in Persia, both firmly based on earlier traditions: the city and town workshop style, and the tribal and village style. Associated with these were the more commercial carpets created to feed the new Western market.
TOWN AND CITY PRODUCTION
Certain towns and cities are synonymous with carpet weaving in Persia. Tabriz in the north-west, Mashad in the north-east, Isfahan (now Esfahan) and Kashan in central Persia, and Kirman in the south-east are of particular importance. Although there are regional
variations in the uses of colour and in the presentation of the subject-matter, there are several important characteristics in this group that identify the style.
Based on the designs of the earlier classic era (16th-to 17th-century Safavid weavings), the pattern details are essentially curvilinear in form, with particular emphasis on floral design elements. Flower-heads, palmettos (vertically split flowers), and associated vines and foliage are the predominant features, naturalistically drawn to create an image of a colourful garden. Variations on this theme may sometimes include people TRIBAL AND VILLAGE PRODUCTION
Tribal rugs are woven by the various nomadic groups during migrations with their flocks, and have been subject to few outside influences. The tribal tradition of rug-weaving is quite different from that of town manufacture: designs are woven from memory, with patterns passed down from generation to generation, or adapted from other products seen by the weavers on their travels; designs are therefore often highly original. The designs of tribal rugs are always geometric, and represent stylized versions of the more naturalistic drawing seen in town rugs. The geometric patterns are mainly determined by the use of the Turkish knot, which is suited to creating angular lines. Tribal products are woven with a wool pile on wool foundation; being a thick material, wool does not allow for such intricate detail as is possible on the cotton or silk foundations of products made in the towns.
Floral motifs abound and are often highly stylized. Animals, birds, and humans are also often depicted, although they are sometimes barely recognizable. Persian tribal rugs tend to be more densely decorated than their northerly Caucasian neighbours, whose designs are bolder and even more rigidly rectilinear.
The best-known Persian tribal groups are the
Kashgai, the Khamseh, and the Afshar, all of which
use wonderful, jewel-like colours – blues, reds, yellows, greens, and ivory – in all tones. Their work includes all-over designs and medallion formats, and they occasionally produce prayer-rugs. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish between the products of these three tribes, since they often borrow each other’s ideas.
Technical quality in tribal work can vary enormously, from extremely coarse to extremely fine depending on the experience or competence of the weaver. It is important to note that the value of a piece is not necessarily based on technical fineness, but may also depend on its visual appeal or its individuality. As well as rugs, artifacts such as bags and animal trappings are woven. Carpets are rarely seen, although in some villages around the main marketing towns settled tribespeople weave large-scale pieces.
WESTERN INFLUENCE
In 1882 Ziegler & Co., a British/Swiss firm exporting Persian goods to the West, set up carpet workshops in Sultanabad (now Arak) in north-west Persia. Traditional designs were adapted for the Western market, incorporating bold floral motifs linked by lattice vines and framed within wide borders. Such carpets are highly popular and valuable, although central-medallion carpets of this type are less sought after. A particular Western-led innovation was the employment of the human figure as the main, pictorial element of a design.
• MAIN CENTRES OF PRODUCTION Tabriz, Mashad,
Isfahan, Kashan, Kirman, Heriz, and Senneh
• MAIN TRIBES the Kashgai, the Khamseh, and the Afshar
• TYPES town and city production: mostly rugs and carpets; tribal and village production: smaller wares –rugs and artifacts such as bags and animal trappings are typical; carpets are rare
• WEAVES town and city rugs and carpets are generally finely woven with either wool on a cotton foundation or, sometimes, silk pile on a silk foundation; tribal and village designs are mostly woven in wool on wool
• COLOURS these vary enormously from the broad range of pastels and bright colours used in towns and cities to the bold, jewel-like colours typical of tribal production
• DESIGNS town and city pieces are based on cartoons; curvilinear designs, typically featuring floral motifs, are common; tribal and village rugs and carpets are woven from memory, so no two examples are exactly alike; design and colouring have often been governed by the export market – the use of the human figure as the principal design was mainly inspired by Western tastes
• COLLECTING avoid pieces in shades of orange and garish shades of red; tribal rugs made before 1900 are prized by collectors; modern 20th-century examples are likely to be well made and attractive but lack the individuality in colour and design of older 19th-century pieces; fine tribal weaves can be very valuable