This purely European country, but with a history of Moorish rule for some hundreds of years, warrants a place in any volume of Oriental rug art for two reasons. The first is that here was the gateway through which the Oriental rug became Europeanized. That is to say, the original Oriental designs copied by the Spanish weavers gradually took on a purely European outlook over the years. Secondly because, for a reason still unknown, Spain introduced a completely different knotting technique from any other rug-producing country. Basically it is the Turkish knot which they use in Spain, but they tie it on one warp thread only, alternate warp threads being used, whereas the Turkish version is tied on two warp threads. The Spanish innovation makes for a rather loosely knotted fabric, but the wool content is almost the same as for Oriental carpets.

Although the earliest surviving examples of Spanish carpets are attributed to the fifteenth century, it is known that when Eleanor, the daughter of Ferdinand III of Castile, came to England to marry Edward I she brought carpets with her. Whether or not these were knotted, or even if they were of Spanish manufacture, is not known, but the records at least set a date when obj ects called carpets were already in use in Spain. There are still some fifteenth-century pieces to be seen in museums, all of which closely resemble the Turkish carpets of that era. Actually there are more fifteenth-century Spanish pieces preserved than any other type. Certainly by the end of the fifteenth century Spain was making carpets herself, even though the work may have been done by immigrants, as suggested by Van de Putt in ‘Some 15th Century Spanish Carpets’ {Burlington Magazine XIX September 1911).

Although still showing Turkish treatment in the designs, the carpets also took on various Christian and heraldic devices, until the seventeenth century when what we regard as a Spanish design had evolved. Because of their background of centuries of Moorish domination, this transposition of design was easier in Spain than perhaps any other country in Europe. The main manufacturing places in the early days were Almeria and Alcaraz. Nowadays, Spain makes carpets of any size, design and colour, in either the Spanish knot or the true Turkish knot.

It has been thought that the great carpets of the sixteenth century were made in Tabriz, but this is hardly possible because firstly, in addition to being Turkish speaking, the weavers of Tabriz, and indeed of the whole of Azerbaijan, use the Turkish or Ghiordes knot, and the sixteenth century masterpieces are all constructed with the Persian or Senneh knot. Secondly, the Ardebil carpet is dated 1539/40 and it is assumed that this is the year it was either completed, or very near to it. If that is so, the piece was being made a few years previously in 1534, the year when Tabriz had been taken by the Ottomans, and the capital temporarily removed to Kasvin. It seems improbable that the court manufactory was taken away and set up again during the making of this carpet.

Like the rest of the country, Tabriz was subject to the gentle decline in textile art, but the merchants of the city traded in a multitude of commodities with whichever conqueror came along, and by the middle of the nineteenth century it was again a very wealthy city. As foreign trade expanded, so Tabriz prospered, the merchants bringing goods from all corners of Persia for onward transmission to Constantinople (Istanbul) and thence to Europe and America. Once it became the practice to weave custom-made carpets for the various overseas markets, often under European supervision, Tabriz weavers made vast quantities, and still do so.

Unfortunately they have set their quantities above their qualities, and although between the two world wars some very high quality pieces were produced, very low qualities were, alas, also introduced, and even today some very poor carpets come from that city. To their credit, however, it must be said that high-grade carpets can still be obtained, but not enough of them are seen on the market, probably because of their price.

Before we leave Tabriz, it should be mentioned that, unlike all other Persian weavers, the weavers of Tabriz do not tie the knots with their fingers, but with a knife with a hook on the end. They can work astonishingly quickly with this instrument. The blade is, of course, used to cut the yarn after the knot has been made.

]]> http://www.coveringrugs.com/tabriz-persian-rugs/feed/ 1 http://www.coveringrugs.com/indian-rugs-and-carpets/ http://www.coveringrugs.com/indian-rugs-and-carpets/#comments Sat, 12 Jun 2010 20:24:29 +0000 irfan http://www.coveringrugs.com/?p=97 As far as is known, carpets were not actually made in India until the time of the Empire of the Great Moguls in the sixteenth century, although before this they had been imported from Persia, particularly from Kirman, which is not surprising when it is considered that Kirman was the last large Persian city on the trade route to India.

When weaving began in India it was with Persian weavers reputedly imported by Akbar, with the consent of Shah Abbas of Persia, who was his contemporary. The weaving was centred on Agra and Lahore, and, as may be surmised, the designs had a distinctly Persian flavour about them. Later, while retaining some Persian influence, Indian designers developed their own ideas, the result being a pleasing contrast between the two schools of design.

Early examples from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries cannot be readily identified as coming from a particular place, and the general tendency is to call any Indian of that period either an Agra or Indo-Persian. There is, in London, however, one Indian carpet, fully documented and known to have been made in the Royal Factory at Lahore. It is in the possession of the Worshipful Company of Girdlers in the city of London, and it was presented to them by Robert Bell, Master of the Company, at the expiry of his second term of office in 1634.

The minutes of the Girdlers Company of 12 August 1634 read: ‘Also, at this Court, Mr. Robert Bell did present a very faire long Turkey Carpitt, with the Company’s Arms thereon, which he freely gave to the use of this Company as a remembrance of his love.’

The carpet, 24 ft x 7 ft 6 inch, was made to lay on the original Court Room table of the Girdlers Company, which was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666; the design incorporates the Coat of Arms of the Company, two panels bearing Robert Bell’s initials, and at each end of the field, Bell’s Coat of Arms.

Robert Bell was a prominent member of the East India Company from the time of its foundation in 1600, and a rather long entry is given in the minutes of this Company for 2 April 1634 to the carpet, which it states was made in Lahore. The reason for the entry is because there was a dispute about payment. It appears that the Company was charged with the cost of manufacture and endeavoured to recover the money from Bell. He stated that he had already settled the account personally. The dispute was never resolved, and later in the same year the directors of the East India Company apparently allowed the matter to drop. The interesting thing about this particular carpet is that here is a ‘Turkey Carpitt’, of Persian design and knotting, undoubtedly made in India. The reference to Turkey is understood when we realize that all Oriental carpets entering England at that time, no matter where they were made, were referred to as such.

Some rather heavy pile Indian carpets come on to the market as Mail’ carpets. It is known that in the last century prisoners, particularly at Agra and Jaipur, were given the task of making extremely tough carpets, and the story goes that good weavers were resentenced at the end of their term, on any pretext that could be found, in order to finish the job they were on.

Since those days, India has remained a carpet producing country, and even today some pieces of excellent quality are made there.

The sub-continent is now split of course, but for the purposes of this volume, the products of Pakistan and Kashmir will be discussed under the heading of India. The former country now makes very finely-knotted rugs, chemically washed, many of them with Turkoman designs and colours. Kashmir has been a producing country for many years, and in addition to the embroideries for which it is justly famous  some exceedingly finely woven pieces have been made there.

The example shown here is in the possession of the author, and it was reputedly made about sixty years ago. Because of the fine knotting, it could only have been made by a child, as it is impossible to imagine such dexterity from adult fingers. Woven on silk warps, with a small amount of silk in the wool pile, the knotting is between fifty and fifty-two per inch each way. This makes about 2600 knots to the square inch, and it is undoubtedly one of the finest knotted examples ever seen. The design is a perfect reproduction, in miniature, of a sixteenth-century Isfahan carpet and, although measuring only 4 ft 3 inch X 1 ft 10 inch, it contains as many knots as an average Oriental carpet twenty times the size. In point of fact this carpet is a miniature reproduction in the real sense of the word, for it was what could best be termed a scaled-down reproduction, knot for knot, of an original.

An interesting sidelight is that this particular rug was exhibited by Messrs Perez, of London, at an exhibition of European and Oriental Carpets at the Royal Water Colour Society’s Galleries, London, in 1946. The rug was displayed in a glass cabinet with miniature furniture placed on it, the latter having been made by disabled ex-servicemen of the Star and Garter Home, Richmond, in aid of whom the exhibition had been promoted. The glass cabinet was not quite long enough for the rug to lie flat, and it was therefore curled over at one end. On visiting the exhibition, Her late Majesty Queen Mary suggested that a magnifying glass should be provided, as the knotting was so fine that it could not be seen properly with the naked eye.

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]]> http://www.coveringrugs.com/indian-rugs-and-carpets/feed/ 0 http://www.coveringrugs.com/china-carpets-and-rugs/ http://www.coveringrugs.com/china-carpets-and-rugs/#comments Wed, 03 Dec 2008 20:21:20 +0000 irfan http://www.coveringrugs.com/?p=93 The earliest Chinese carpets known are from the seventeenth century. This suggests that the Chinese were late starters in the textile field, but it is inconceivable that this country, so advanced in other arts and crafts, should have been behind in this technique which was so prevalent in other parts of the Orient. According to the records, the custom of using carpets as furnishings began as early as 1122 BC, but of course this has never been substantiated by even the smallest practical example. In this context we are, of course, speaking of China proper. Elsewhere in this website it will be seen that the earliest known knotted rug was found near the Outer Mongolian border, but this is attributed to Persia and not to China. Certainly Chinese motifs found their way into the early rugs of Turkey and the Caucasus, which also suggests that this vast country was participating in the craft much earlier than is supposed.

The main centre of production in the nineteenth century appears to have been Pekin, and even today we can find carpets which are attributed to this city. Completely Chinese in character, many with a blue ground colour, they are very different from the modern Chinese product. Exporting carpets from China only started in 1850 and since then the product has undergone many changes to satisfy the appetite of the West. Production is now centred in Tientsin where, since the nineteen-twenties, a fine yarn, high pile carpet has been made which necessitates chemical washing, and the magnificent silky sheen and carved effect gives a most luxurious appearance to this latest development in Oriental art. A further innovation, made in Hong Kong, is a kind of tufted carpet with a latexed backing. As this is not a traditional weave, such products have not been considered in this volume.

Carpets have appeared which are classified as Sinkiang and Ningsia, but these are from areas which could be considered to belong more to Eastern Turkestan than to China, as also would the carpets of Tibet.

One type of knotted rug from China must be mentioned here, as it does not appear in any other country. This is the Pillar rug, made long and very narrow, to surround pillars. This is so skilfully executed that when the rug has been wound spirally around a pillar, the design, hitherto piecemeal, suddenly becomes a coherent whole.

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This area, bounded in the south by Persia and Afghanistan, and by the Caspian Sea in the west, is the original home of the Turks, and turns out many items in knotted pile other than rugs. All their products are made for home use, or perhaps one should say tent use, because these are a nomadic people, and there is no organized industry as in other rug-producing countries. Although on the ancient trade route from China, there is no record of rug weaving earlier than the nineteenth century; yet the sheer artistry and technique of these rugs can only lead one to believe that they stem from a long ancestry. The probable reason for our lack of knowledge about them is the fact that for some centuries Turkestan was isolated from the rest of the world, only opening up somewhat in the last quarter of the nineteenth century after the Russian conquest.

Nothing of interest historically will have survived, as the products of Turkestan were always purely functional, and although hand-woven textiles, particularly knotted ones, are extremely hard wearing, the constant use of them by a tribe always on the move is hardly conducive to preservation.

Before giving consideration to the various tribes in Turkestan, it may be as well to dispose of some ill-founded descriptions which may confuse the issue. For instance, it is general practice to refer to all products from this area, and also from.other areas, not necessarily adjoining but using the same designs, as Bokhara. There must also be many owners of rugs who bought them with the rather grand labels of ‘Royal Bokhara’ or ‘Princess Bokhara’. These descriptions are the figment of a rug dealer’s mind, to obtain a better price by upgrading rugs with non-essential names. It should be noted that the city of Bokhara is not a rug-making town, but the market for many of the pieces made by the various Turkoman tribes.

It has been mentioned above that many items other then rugs are made in this district. Tent bands, woven with the design in pile on a flat hand-woven canvas foundation which gives an embossed effect, are used as a kind of frieze round the walls of a tent. Their length is usually about 42 ft, which would doubtless be equivalent to the perimeter of a normal sized tent, although some much longer ones have been found. Gun and water bottle covers are other examples of the great variety of objects made with knotted pile. More commonplace in western countries, however, are tent bags, camel bags and cushions, all gracefully worked by these strange nomadic people for their comfort in what must be a very hard country. The largest tribe is that known as Tekke.

These people inhabit the southern part of Turkestan and part of the province of Khorassan, over the political border in Persia, as also do the Yamouts, who weave the finest qualities. Other large tribes are the Salors and the Pendehs. All these have their little characteristics in design, and strictly speaking any Turkoman rug should be prefixed by the tribal name. The one exception is the Hatchli, which is a design in the form of a cross, made by various tribes, and reputedly used as a tent doorway.

The name Beshir is applied to a particular kind of Turkoman rug. It is not a tribal piece, as is the case with the others enumerated above. There is some doubt as to where the name originates, one being that it is a sept or branch of a large tribe. Beshirs do not contain the conventional Turkoman octagon forms, and a further characteristic is that very large carpets are occasionally found, which is not so in the case of the other Turkoman pieces, the largest size being about 13 ft x 10 ft. One other form of weaving has to be mentioned: the pileless fabric known elsewhere as Kelim, but here referred to as ‘Palas’. These pieces are used as wall hangings, settee covers and divan or table coverings.

All Turkoman textile products feature the blood red ground colour which is not found anywhere else. Apart from being a very acceptable colour to western eyes, it is the natural colour for a nomadic people to use in such a cold and desolate area as Turkistan.

Of course, the foregoing was primarily about Western Turkestan, and although the political boundaries do not coincide, there is a region which must be termed, for the purposes of this website, Eastern Turkestan. The marketing centre for this district is Samarkand, something over 100 miles east of Bokhara; although it is, like Bokhara, in the Soviet Republic of Uzbekskaya, the design is purely Chinese in character. It is true that Chinese designs found their way westwards, even into Turkey, and many of the so-called Turkish designs can be traced back to Chinese origin, but Eastern Turkestan appears to be a no-man’s-land between East and West, and the designs encountered in this market, while retaining their Chinese motifs, have also a flavour of the West about them.

It is a vast area, and rugs from Khotan, Kashgar, and Yarkand are collectively called Samarkand in the markets of the West. One deplorable practice must be mentioned here, which does not enhance the reputation of this district which produces such original pieces. It is well known that as in Western Turkestan no proof of antiquity can be established. However, in Europe, and particularly in England, there has grown up a practice of washing the rather brash colourings out of these primitive, but not old pieces, the resulting appearance almost completely colourless being much favoured by certain interior decorators. While there can be a certain charm in a room decorated with a carpet treated in this manner, the intrinsic value of the piece has been utterly destroyed, and its wearing qualities very seriously impaired. Unfortunately, too, these pieces are often represented to be much older than they are.

Qum is an important town in the religious sense, with many pilgrims visiting its shrine every year, for here are buried some of the Sefavi and Qajar rulers. Strangely enough, the town has no weaving history. When weaving commenced in Qum, it was not with the normal traditional designs that the weavers worked. The designers created new forms, based on the traditional patterns but in small all-over designs, as opposed to the designs of Kashan.

Nain was important for the weaving of woollen cloth until it declined in the nineteen-thirties, when the weavers turned their energies to rugs. From here come now some of the finest rugs ever woven in Persia. They are made from finely spun wool, which is short cropped, giving a clarity of design unmatched elsewhere. They also sometimes weave with part silk pile, giving a glittering effect which results in the illusion that the rug is embossed. Always expensive, never seen in profusion, if any modern Persian rugs are to create the treasures of tomorrow, those from Nain will be among the leaders.

Some further names should be recounted because of the contribution they have made historically, or for their place in the modern world of hand-knotted fabrics. Firstly, the carpets of Joshaghan, just off the main road south of Kashan, have remained almost identical in design and one design only for over two hundred years. Not many are turned out today, but those which find their way onto the market are quite unmistakable. The name of Senneh will not be found on Persian maps, the town being called Sanandaj, but in carpet lore Senneh is the name given to the particular type of knot used by the Persian weavers as distinct from the Turkish one. Why the name of Senneh was given to this knot is a mystery, because the town itself lies in the heart of the Kurdish area of Persia, where the people not only speak Turkish, but naturally use the Turkish knot in their weaving as well.

A possible answer may be that the rugs of Senneh are so finely woven that early western observers, not checking their facts, were misled into thinking that only the Persian knot could have produced such weaving. It would be a natural mistake to make, because the Senneh is very fine, with a peculiarly lustreless pile, cropped much shorter than any other Persian rug. Not many are made now, and it is the semi-antique rugs which are in demand, and these are naturally becoming scarcer as time goes by.

In contrast, the Bijar carpet from the town of that name in the neighbourhood of Sanandaj is, and always was, a robust effort, solid, in many cases so hard it could hardly be folded for packing. Sultanabad or Arak, to give the town its modern name, has been mentioned previously as being the place where Messrs Ziegler & Co. began business in 1885. Today the various trade-named carpets such as Muscabad, Mahal, Saruk and Sultanabad are still being-produced in this area. From here also come the dainty Malayer rugs as well as the hard-wearing Fereghan carpets. It is difficult to know which names to leave out in dealing with the above areas.

The goods from all these places, and many more villages in the surrounding countryside, are now marketed in Hamadan, which is a large city where a number of European exporting houses have offices and buying agents to gather carpets from an area comprising some hundreds of villages. Hamadan has had its moments historically, but not in the art of weaving. Today it is one of the most important cities in Persia for the collection and forwarding of goods to America and Europe. Also from this area come the unmistakable rugs and runners known as Sarabend. The design of these is always a version of the pine cone or leaf design.

Cities, towns and villages, all make rugs and carpets, but there are also the tribal areas, which cannot be left out of any discourse on this subject.

The Bakhtiari tribe is probably the best known in Persia, and one of the largest. Rugs from their area, which is west of Isfahan, are in a rather coarse weave, often in garden or panel designs. Very colourful, these rugs are not tribal at all in character, having a more formal appearance than one would normally associate with a nomadic people. The reason for this lies in the fact that these rugs are not made by the Bakhtiari tribe proper, but by the villagers in an area where a section of their people settled more than a hundred years ago, since when they have led a sedentary existence, in contrast to the main tribe which still lives a nomadic life.

Another large tribe, this time really nomadic, is the Afshari. These people are of Turkish origin, and they only moved into Persia in the sixteenth century. Their habitat is the area between Shiraz and Kirman, and their rugs are sold on both markets. Also sold on the Shiraz market are the products of the Quashqai tribe, inhabitants of the Fars district, to the north of Shiraz.

The other important tribal area from which rugs emanate is in the north-east of the country. Here are the wandering Beloutchi people, who provide the cheap dark purplish-red and black coloured rugs known throughout the world as Beloutch rugs. The Tekkes and Yamouts inhabit the frontier territory common to Persia and Turkestan. From these people come the so-called Bokhara rugs, which will be more fully discussed in the next chapter.

Indeed, one of the most common Persian designs, woven in many parts of the country in various forms, is known as the ‘Herati’ design. Somehow the name of Herat became associated with a particular type of carpet in those early days, but it is never used for the modern product.

The nineteenth-century revival of the carpet saw the emergence of what is known as the Khorassan carpet  not necessarily made in Meshed, but in the province of that name, of which Meshed is the principal city. Khorassans were not, however, commercial pieces in the sense in which we regard the term, even the sizes being of the old Persian proportions long and narrow. Mesheds as we now know them are made in western sizes for export, and they come in various qualities. In general they have a somewhat sombre appearance, not suitable for chemical washing, and the yarn lacks the lustre associated with other Persian weaves. Both Turkish and Persian knotting is employed here. Carpets made with the former are actually named Turkbaff, and not Meshed, which definition is used for the Persian knotted variety. The word Turkbaff means ‘Turkish knot’, while Farsibaff refers to the Persian knot.

So far, only the largest cities of Persia have been discussed, those in which the art of design has played a big part in their development over the centuries, and which have placed Persia in the forefront of carpet production in the Orient. There are, however, some smaller places, possibly not so well known, which have also made, and still make, their contribution to the overall picture of the country which produces a greater variety of carpets than any other.

The woollen carpets of Kashan from the middle of the nineteenth century are still looked for in the markets of the world. Made with extremely fine wool and mellowed with age, they are magnificent specimens and now have a wonderful natural sheen or glazure on the pile which could not be emulated by chemical washers. This is due to the type of wool used in Kashan in those days. Of later years, and up to today, Kashan still turns out good quality pieces, but with two reservations: firstly, the yarns used are in no way comparable to those used fifty to a hundred years ago and secondly there is a lack of variety in the designs.

Kashan also produces silk rugs and carpets, and here the modern product faces the criticism of sameness of design, coupled with a harshness of colour which one is anxious not to interfere with lest the colours should be disturbed. In other words, the dyes may be good, but they do not show it with confidence. However, the silk Kashans of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have stood the test of time and when in good condition are much sought after for their beauty.