Antique Persian Rug Or Tapestry
Before wall-to-wall carpet was invented, tribal weavers of Persia and Turkey had developed decorative, but useful, antique Persian rugs to adorn floors and walls. Beautiful, yet the tapestry and rug were designed to keep out drafts in the nomadic tents or drafty palaces. Persia, which is now known as Iran, had many areas well known for carpet weaving. Each was known by the city name. The key design of Persian rugs includes curved floral patterns. The materials most often used in these beautiful pieces were wool and silk. Although each area produced similar motifs, they were still different enough to be able to tell where it was woven. With similar political and religious backgrounds, the weavers included similar designs and colors, but they would also leave a distinctive mark from their particular region. Tribal rugs in outlying areas will usually have fewer knots per square inch than the finer rugs of the city. This is why the city rugs usually have more of the curving designs while the tribal rugs use more geometric shapes. The tightness of the knots determines the ability to get that curve. The time in which the rug was woven can be guessed at by the design itself. In the antique pieces, you will notice a field that is full of vines and tendrils that support detailed pictures of blossoms and buds. These are typically surrounded by interwoven arabesques that pull the whole design together. In newer pieces the filed is usually woven in a solid color with a circle in the middle and triangles at the corners. The flowers on the design are more realistic and arranged more precisely. You can also tell the difference between a Turkish rug and a Persian rug, since Turkish weavers use symmetrical knots while the Persian weavers use a non-symmetrical knot. Many times the date the rug was made is woven into the edge in Arabic numbers. This is helpful if the weaver was being honest and if you can decipher the date. Before the 20th century, Islamic countries were still using a lunar calendar. Since the lunar months are shorter than solar months, the dates have to be converted to get an accurate year. If the rug was woven in the 17th, 18th, or 19th century, you have to use a formula to convert the date to a Georgian calendar that Western countries use. The "Christian" date would equal the Islamic lunar date plus 622 subtracting the lunar date that has been divided by 33.7. Sometime in the 1920's both Turkey and Persia adopted a solar calendar to match the West. So if the rug were woven after that date, you would only need to add the 622 to the date woven in the edge. These can't be completely accurate, because you may not be able to tell if it was woven before or after the calendar change and because the new year of the Christian calendar is different from the Islamic new year. It should still help you to be prepared when a discount rug dealer is trying to pass off a rug as an antique when it was really woven in 1998. Of course the dye should also give it away since antique Oriental rug weavers would only have access to natural dyes from plants and animals; whereas, modern weavers can use chemical dyes. Antique Persian rugs tell a history of a people in a beautiful manner. Whether you use it as a rug or a tapestry, the design will create a dazzling accent piece to your home. |
