Persian carpet

A traditional craftsman mending a rug in Isfahan. See special page on Isfahani rugs

The Persian rug is an essential part of Persian art and culture. Carpet-weaving is undoubtedly one of the most distinguished manifestations of Persian culture and art, and dates back to the Bronze Age.

The earliest surviving corpus of Persian carpets come from the Safavid dynasty (1501-1736) in the 16th century. However, painted depictions prove a longer history of production. There is much variety among classical Persian carpets of the 16th and 17th century. Common motifs include scrolling vine networks, arabesques, palmettes, cloud bands, medallions, and overlapping geometric compartments rather than animals and humans. Persian Art being based in Shia Islam does not take the hard line against human representation that we see in Sunni influenced Turkish rug weaving. Figural designs are particularly popular in the Iranian market and are not nearly as common in rugs exported to the west.

Materials

Wool is the most common material for rugs but cotton is frequently used for the foundation of city and workshop rugs. silk carpets date back to at least the sixteenth century in Sabzavar and the Seventeenth century in Kashan and Yezd. silk is not as common since silk is more expensive and less durable than wool or wool on cotton.

History

With the passage of time, the materials used in carpets, including wool and cotton, decay. Therefore archaeologists are not able to make any particularly useful discoveries during archaeological excavations, save for special circumstances.

What has remained from early times as evidence of carpet-weaving is nothing more than a few pieces of worn-out rugs. Such fragments do not help very much in recognizing the carpet-weaving characteristics of pre-Seljuk period (13th and 14th centuries AD) in Persia.

Among the oldest pieces discovered are those found in Eastern Turkestan, dating back to the third to fifth centuries AD, and also some of the hand-weavings of the Seljuks of Asia Minor on exhibit in Ala’edin Mosque in Konya and Ashrafoghlu Mosque in Beyshehir, Turkey. These pieces attracted the attention of researchers earlier this century, and now they are kept in the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art in Istanbul and the Mowlana Museum in Konya.

In a unique archaeological excavation in 1949 however, the exceptional Pazyryk carpet was discovered among the ices of Pazyryk Valley, in Altai Mountains in Siberia. It was discovered in the grave of a Scythian prince by a group of Russian archaeologists under the supervision of Sergei Ivanovich Rudenko. Radiocarbon testing revealed that Pazyryk carpet was woven in the 5th century BC. This carpet is 1.83×2 meters and has 36 symmetrical knots per cm². The advanced weaving technique used in the Pazyryk carpet indicates a long history of evolution and experience in this art. Most experts believe that the Pazyryk carpet is a late achievement of at least one thousand years of technique evolution and history.

According to this theory the art of carpet-weaving is at least 3500 years old.

The Persian rug today

From the yarn fiber to the colors, every part of the Persian rug is traditionally hand made from natural ingredients over the course of many months. This arduous process is shown in the Japanese/Iranian film Carpet of Wind, directed by Kamal Tabrizi.

Although carpet production has mostly become mechanized today, the traditional hand woven rugs are still widely found all around the world, and usually have higher prices than their machine woven counterparts.

Many fine pieces of the Persian carpet are to be found in The Carpet Museum of Iran in Tehran.

Anatolian & Persian

The difference between Anatolian (Turkish) and Persian rugs is today largely one of tradition.

Typically, a traditional Persian carpet is tied with a single looping knot (Persian or Senneh Knot), meanwhile the traditional Anatolian carpet is tied with a double looping knot (Turkish or Ghiordes Knot). This means that for every 'vertical strand' of thread in a carpet, an Anatolian carpet has two loops as opposed to the one loop for the various Persian rugs that use a Persian 'single' knot. Ultimately, this process of 'double knotting' in traditional Anatolian/Turkish carpets results in a slightly more block like image when compared to the traditional 'single knotted' Persian carpet. The traditional Anatolian style also reduces the number of Knots per sq cm. The result of these factors has concequently created the ancient and international reputation of the 'persian carpet' in terms of quality.

It is also common to see Anatolian rugs identified as longer lasting, which they probably are. However, given that a well made and taken care of carpet in either style can easily last several hundred years this is usually disregarded.

Today, it is common to see carpets woven in both Turkey and Iran using either of the two knot styles. When comparing carpets the only way to definitively identify the knot used is to splay open the pile by bending the rug against itself and looking at the base of the knot.

Also see: Knots per sq cm).

Traditional Centers of carpet production in Iran (Persia)

File:Farsh-Isfahan.jpg

A rug depicting the famous mosque of Isfahan.

The major classical centers of carpet production in Persia were in Tabriz (1500-1550), Kashan (1525-1650), Herat (1525-1650), and Kerman (1600-1650).

The majority of carpets from Tabriz have a central medallion and quartered corner medallions superimposed over a field of scrolling vine ornament, sometimes punctuated with mounted hunters, single animals, or animal combat scenes. Perhaps the most well-known of the Tabriz works are the twin Ardabil carpets most likely made for the shrine at Ardabil (today in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Los Angeles County Museum).

Kashan is known for its silk carpet production. Most famously, for the three silk hunting carpet masterpieces depicting mounted hunters and animal prey (currently in the collections of the Vienna Museum of Applied Arts (aka the MAK), the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Stockholm Museum). The Kashan rugs are among the most valuable in existence. One carpet, for example, is known to have been sold in Germany for $20,000 in 1969.

The Herat carpets, or ones of similar design created in Lahore and Agra, India, are the most numerous in Western collections. They are characterized by a red field with scrolling vine ornament and palmettes with dark green or blue borders.

The seven classes of Kerman carpet were defined by May Beattie. She identified their unique structure and named it the "vase technique." Carpet types in this group include garden carpets (ornamented with formal gardens and water channels) and the ogival lattice carpets. A fine and well-known example of the later was purchased by the Victoria and Albert Museum under the guidance of William Morris. The influence of Persian carpets is readily apparent in his carpet designs.

Types of carpets

Carpet dealers have developed a classification for Persian carpets based on design, type of fabric, and weaving technique. The categories are named for cities and areas associated with each design:

External links

Oriental Rug Notes - Nom-Commercial www resource with 1000's of rug photos
More Nom-Commercial Oriental Rug Notes
Islamic Carpets showing examples of knot patterns.