A recent auction at Christies London brought almost $10 million USD for an antique vase design Kerman rug. To read more, please visit our site.

When you think about upscale interior design, antiques and fine art are naturally the first items that come to mind. Antiques have an undeniable ability to add personality and character to the décor of any home. Because of their uniqueness many people opt to incorporate antiques into their living spaces. Whether it is something handed down through generations or found in an antique shop many homeowners make “antiquing” a hobby in order to add personal flair to their homes.

An antique is an item that is at least 80 – 100 years old and for the most part they are both decorative as well as collectible. An antique item is desired and collected because of its age, beauty, rarity, and use. One type of antique that many people collect for their homes are antique rugs. Funnily enough, many of the antique carpets are comparable and at times even cheaper in price than brand new rugs. Once you establish your budget, size requirements and overall look and feel your quest for the right piece begins!

Antique rugs may be found in many different looks and colors. The more “traditional” style carpets such as Tabriz, Kashan and Khorassan will usually have intricate patterns and can be found in a wide array of colors from the jewel tones to the light and airy. These types of pieces give a regal and elegant look to most rooms. However, modern design tends to be simpler in taste and style. Many of the designs in recent years favor a more minimalistic approach to the interior design. Incorporating antique carpets with subtle colors and a more abstract look (like arts and crafts or art deco) will go a long way and will add a warmth and texture to the space.

Another type of antique carpet that is often used in more modern settings are Moroccan rugs. Moroccan rugs are a fabulous way to invite warmth and create a bright and appealing atmosphere in your home. The simple tribal geometric patterns of these rugs (some of which are taken from the Tattoo designs of the Berber tribes) have been used for some-time to allow a sophisticated look to go with modern furniture. Many historic homes boast these Moroccan rugs such as one of America’s most famous architects of the modern era: Frank Lloyd Wright.

Although, it is more traditional to display your antique carpet on the floor, it can also be displayed on the wall as a work of art (which the antique carpets actually are). In the right lighting you will be able to see the artistry behind these artisanal antique rugs.

A rug tends to be the most expensive item in a room when decorating so it is imperative to get a piece that you will love for a long time. It is also important to purchase the rug from a dealer that you trust. A good dealer will provide you with information, images, and history of the rug as well as give you the option to trade in the rug for a different piece in the future. Be wary of dealers who tell you that the rug will be worth much more in “X” years because there is no way to estimate what any piece will fetch in the future as demands will always change to fit the ever-changing interior design trends. It is best to establish a good relationship with your dealer since down the line you might want to acquire a better piece or might simply want a different look.

So, why buy an antique rug? They clearly allow a very versatile and stylish look for your home decor. With their patina (that can only come with age), texture and their variety of colors and designs, they can liven up any modern, traditional or casual room and make your interior look picturesque and magnificent.

Over the years the trends, patters, and design of interiors have been reinventing themselves every few years but the demand and appreciation for antique rugs has remained. Great antique carpets, just like great paintings will never go out of style and the demand has only increased over the years.

After the break up of the empire Kerman like Kashan experienced a revival of weaving in the early part of the 19th century. Kerman had been one of the leading producers of shawls decorated with boteh’s or paisley designs. It is not surprising that many Kerman carpets in the early days were woven by former shawl makers and employed similar designs. Tree carpets, hunting and garden carpets were based upon the Safavid period. Kerman was also well known for its silk carpets and produced a series of portrait rugs, numbered and inscribed representing famous historical personalities from Moses to Napoleon. Typically, Kerman rugs are more elaborate in design compared to Kashan’s and are densely woven. They reflect a slightly French or European style of representing flowers. Patterns are rich with roses, daisies, peonies and carnations. In general when compared to Kashan’s they use similar colors though Kerman’s have more uniformity and the dyes vary, especially the reds. Kerman reds are more cranberry compared to the Kashan’s madder reds. The finest examples of Kerman’s are called Lavar Kermans, made in the town of Ravar. Know for their fineness of weave, elegant designs of classical derivation and all over or central medallion designs.

The revival of carpet weaving in Kashan in the 19th century was in large part to the merchant Hajji Mollah Hassan whose wife was also a weaver. He imported merino wool and because of that Kashan carpets differed from the weaves of the rest of Persia. Some historicl reference suggests that Hajji’s wife might have been the creative force behind this movement. But given the politics of the times she never received the accolades she deserved. The favored designs are complicated floral or floral medallion escutcheons arranged in arabesques over the field. The design of the Kashan is not as busy as the Kerman design. The flowers are bigger, with flowering vines, scrolls and blossoming branches used more frequently. Kashan also produced crude pictorial rugs many illustrating Sufi religious subjects. Kashans typically employ more colors and patterns compared to Kermans.

The finest and very best Kashan carpets dating from the end of the 19th century or the beginning of the 20th century are called Mohtashem Kashan’s. The weaver’s spared no expense and used quality Manchester or cork wool with lots of luster, the knot count was high, blue weft was common and the weave was finely woven. When signed and dated these extremely rare rugs are some of the most valuable in existence.

This antique Heriz-Serapi piece exhibits an extraoridinary medallion design with a unique style and bold color schema. The medallion itself draws immediate attention to the center of the rug, which then propagates through the deep blue field with its earthy extensions. The guards mimic the medallion in a dichotic color-reversal and complimentary design. The geometric tendencies of the medallion are also beautifully paired with the linear flora that flow through the border and are inscribed in the guards and inner medallion. The blue-tinged abrash that garnishes the piece provides a natural depth to the rug that is simply defined as brilliant.

This Kerman rug boasts an intricate floral pattern, symmetrical through the length of the piece, with swirling vines and budding flowers dominating the field and a similarly rich border. The cream and blue colors of this piece make it highly desirable in a modern market. The large-scale buds in the field also make this piece extraordinary, especially for a Kerman with such a fine weave. The immense size of this rug only helps to fortify its grandiose presence.

The tradition of hunting is deeply immersed within Persian epic history. Years before the first hunting scene carpet was ever woven, hunting stories were passed down orally for over 1300 years. Because this practice was so deeply embedded in Persian culture, it is no surprise that weavers portrayed hunting scenes in their work as early as the 16th century. These hunting designs show no specificity…they do not directly refer to any particular person or historical event. In the rare case when a specific individual is depicted, he is distinguished by his manner of dress or an inscription within the rug. Because hunting was considered such a distinguished act, these carpets represent a part of princely life. Furthermore, many hunting scene rugs were originally commissioned for nobility and royalty.

This specific Tabriz, woven in Azerbaijan circa 1880, has an extremely artistic design that elevates this piece from an ordinary rug to an exquisite work of art. Upon close examination, one can see that so much time and effort went into executing such a marvelous motif. This hunting scene features an asymmetrical design that spans the whole field with a great sense of movement. Usually, the objects in pictorial rugs seem very stationary, as if the subjects were posing motionless. However, this master weaver has achieved something that is rarely seen…he was able to capture not only the characters, but also the passion that drives them. Every scene flows into the next so fluidly, it is hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. Framing the majestic field, the animal design carries into the border, bringing an overall continuity to the rug.

Tabriz, the central city of Eastern Azarbaijan, is one of the oldest cities in Iran to which Moghadassi, the tenth century AD geographer refers as “a very beautiful, prosperous and developed city.” The story of Tabriz is one of repeated destruction, survival, restoration and revival. In 791 A.D., it was rebuilt after a devastating earthquake. It rose again after earthquakes in 858, 1041, 1721 and 1780 A.D. It survived the invasion of the moguls, the Ottomans the Afghans and two Russian occupations, one in 1827, and the other under Stalin’s regime in 1941.

Some of the most artistic expressions of the sixteenth-century Persian craft were produced in Tabriz. However, from the time of the Afghan invasions in 1722 until the late 19th century, the karkhounes (workshops) ceased to exist and the craft returned to the level of the village weaver making no more than sufficient for his own needs.

At the end of the 19th century, three inspired Persian master-weavers, Hajji Jallili, Sheik Safi and Kurban Dai were the flames of the revival sparked by an ever-increasing demand from western markets.

Tabriz carpets very diversified in weave and design, including the corner medallion design, palmette flowers, weeping willow, cypress tree, geometrical patterns, prayer-niche and hunting scene designs. Pictorial Tabriz rugs are also very well known. Some Tabriz carpets are decorated with imaginary motifs as well as Persian poetry.

References:

The Splendor of Persian Carpets by E. Gans-Ruedin
The Carpet Museum of Iran
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Islamic Art Department

One of the great commonplaces of the rug market is the supposed distinction between antique rugs of the sort sought after by collectors and those that appeal to clients who are primarily interested in decorating their homes or offices. This sweeping distinction involves a range of underlying oppositions – the difference between the design traditions used in village or tribal weaving and those used in urban rug production, the difference between small rugs and trappings versus larger or room-sized rugs, a rich and varied palette versus one that is cooler and more limited, and a knowledgeable interest in the rare and esoteric as opposed to a desire for what is simply beautiful or attractive.

Antique rug collectors come off as scholars more or less, endowed to one degree or another with a learned historical perspective. They tend to approach rugs from the vantage of ethnography. They are interested in tribal or regional distinctions and the place of a given piece in a larger development. They want pieces made for local use, which they see as authentic, in opposition to rugs made simply for commercial export. They tend to acquire pieces of scatter size or smaller that typified village and tribal weaving, where larger rugs were less common. Collectors accept and admire the often quirky or wild design sensibility and coloration of tribal and village rugs.

Decorative rug enthusiasts, on the other hand are interested in acquiring ornamental floor coverings that work within a larger, coordinated system or plan of interior furnishing. Consequently, they tend toward rugs that are bigger, whose designs and coloration are more subdued or less obtrusive, and therefore capable of blending in more easily with their surroundings. Since rugs of this size tended to be made in urban-centered workshops, it was the more sophisticated oriental design tradition of the cities that became synonymous with the notion of the decorative rugs and the taste they appeal to. Owners of decorative rugs are also assumed not to be immediately concerned with the historical development or rarity of the pieces they acquire, but primarily with their visual appeal.

Seen in these terms, the difference between collectible and decorative antique rugs would seem to be a gulf as wide as the Grand Canyon. But as with all polar oppositions, those sketched above are predicated on assumptions, often simplistic, which obscure and distort what is really a more complex situation. Collectors interested in antique nomadic tribal weavings do acquire larger rugs or main carpets, just as those interested in classical Persian, Turkish, or Indian carpets must consider buying pieces fifteen to twenty feet long or more. Collector pieces of this sort will inevitably go on the floor, and as such they must function as interior furnishings, or, dare one say, as decorative rugs. And while actual statistics may be lacking, it is virtually certain that many collectors use even scatter size rugs as floor covering, or as furniture throws, where they too function as an integral part of interior décor. Nor is it clear that collector pieces are essentially equatable with tribal and village rugs. Collectors of early Turkish, Persian, and Indian rugs are clearly interested in pieces with classic Islamic urban design, the same types of design that inspired most of the decorative rugs of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. What is more, various urban-derived small sized Turkish and Persian rugs of the nineteenth century, Hereke, Ghiordes, Farahan or Kerman, are considered collectible. From this perspective much of the distinction between collectible and decorative rugs collapses.

To put it somewhat differently, many, perhaps most collector rugs can also be decorative rugs, while some, but not all decorative rugs are collectible. So, if antique tribal and/or classical pieces with richer color and strident designs, even smaller ones, can be used as decorative rugs, then what aspects of the conception of antique decorative rugs discussed above do in fact distinguish them from collector pieces? It is the notion that essentially decorative rug buyers have no real interest in the history and development of designs, and that they are looking for pieces with subdued design and coloration. But who says that the affluent, tasteful, highly educated buyers who largely constitute the clientele for decorative antique rugs have no interest in the history or artistic development of the piece they acquire, or that with some encouragement, they could acquire such interests? And who says that they want designs and colors that will fade into the woodwork so as not to overwhelm the surrounding upholstery and window treatments? These too are simplistic assumptions, and to the extent that they are true, they may not represent the genuine, unfettered sensibilities of the clients themselves, but rather the opinions and strategies of the interior designers who represent them and who define and control market trend.

The proclivity of many interior designers or decorators for rugs with neutral or soft coloration and less obtrusive, allover repeat designs is well known in the rug trade, and it should come as no surprise that rug dealers cater to such taste in the interest of selling rugs. But what is less clear is whether the designers are catering in turn to the taste of their clients, or whether they are in fact imposing their own taste for their own reasons on those clients. It is far easier to coordinate a room around an unobtrusive rug than to do so with a piece whose design and color make any kind of expressive artistic statement. But if decorators encouraged their clients to appreciate central medallion designs and the beauty of saturated vegetable dyes, and if they took the trouble to impart something of the history behind the designs, who is to say that market trend might not be vastly different than it is now.

Nor are collectors without responsibility for the polarized view of collectible and decorative rugs. Why is it that an outstanding Serapi, Bakshaish, or Sultanabad carpet should not be collectible, although few if any collectors would admit it? As marketplace rugs produced for commercial export, they apparently lack the cultural authenticity that is so enticing to collectors. But why? Serapi, Bakshaish, and Sultanabad carpets arose from a larger, conscious revival of traditional rug production in nineteenth-century Iran, much the same as nineteenth century Kazak, Karabagh, or Shirvan rugs represent a similar revival in the Caucasus. And why do we assume that pieces which still entice collectors – nomadic tribal rugs like Turkomans or the great village weavings of the Caucasus – would automatically have more cultural authenticity, when it is documented that their production in the late nineteenth century was fostered and controlled by the Czarist Russian government precisely for commercial export to the West? There can be no doubt that a divide between collector and decorative rugs is widely thought to exist among rug enthusiasts, but it predicated largely on subjective perspectives which have become so ingrained over time that they have acquired the status of unquestioned validity.

It may be useful to conclude by examining number 896 from the Nazmiyal Collection, seen above, a carpet that does not fall readily into the collectible or decorative categories, and which poses a sort of challenge to collectors and decorative rug buyers alike. This is an early twentieth century antique English piece produced as part of the Arts and Crafts Movement. Its design is based closely on classical Turkish rugs of the so-called Small Pattern Holbein type made in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The field has a pattern of quatrefoil medallions and interlace roundels staggered alternately in vertical columns. The border is of the so-called “pseudo-Kufic type with interlacing reminiscent of the field, perhaps the most interesting border type known on Turkish rugs of this type. Even the coloration of the piece with its emphasis on reds, blue greens, aubergine, and gold flows the Turkish prototypes closely.

Now who would buy such a rug? Certainly no collector. But why not. The piece is a genuine Arts and Crafts antique, and like all good antiques it has the aura of another time and place. A collector would have the knowledge to appreciate the historical reference so central to the Arts and Crafts Movement. A collector, moreover, might appreciate this rug as the heir to a longstanding English tradition for imitating Holbein pattern rugs that began with needlework copies of Elizabethan times. At 10 x 12 feet, this piece would make an ideal room-size decorative rug for an owner with a collector mentality, especially since Small Pattern Holbein rugs themselves were never made in so large a size. Yet to acquire this piece a collector would have get beyond the idea that this is not an authentic, original early Turkish carpet. But what rug has such authenticity. We now know that the small pattern Holbein carpets were themselves close adaptations of earlier and contemporary Timurid carpets produced in Iran.

And how about decorative rug clients? Would they see this for the impressively decorative work of art that it is, or would they consider it “not decorative” because the colors were too strong, or the design too bold and dense. In actuality this rug would make a spectacular anchor or focus of a well-designed interior carefully coordinated with the right furniture and upholstery, or perhaps even with Arts and Crafts furnishings. And if the client were inclined such Arts and Crafts taste, might they not also enjoy the idea that the piece exemplified the Movement’s penchant for historical allusion or reference?

In the end, this carpet appears neither collectible nor decorative simply because received opinion would judge it in this way. It is perhaps time that antique rug collectors as well as the clientele for the decorative rug market and the interior designers who serve them all broaden their horizons somewhat. Pidgeon-holing categorizations are supposed to help people, but in reality they do not, they only provide constraints. As things stand now, Nazmiyal 896 poses an interesting question – how good can any standard of judgment be that would fail to accommodate a rug of such charm, beauty, and interest?

You always arrived at these auctions early, to preview the auction items, and catch up on the local gossip. You could fine anything from farm implements to fine china. So, occasionally there were antique rugs. While very often these were American antique, such as hook rugs, sometimes there were antique Persian rugs.

One particular auction day, my husband and I arrived early; as we looked around I spotted what I thought was a Sarouk. The rug, though beautiful, with rich blues and reds, did not meet my criteria for buying it. Simply put, I did not love it. Being a novice, I was not sure of it’s value. I was swept away by the excitement of bidding on something I thought might be a treasure. Someone else thought so also. I was approached by a gentleman, who sensed my interest. He asked me if I was interested in becoming his partner on thisrug . I decided that half the investment on something I was unsure of was better than 100%. In hind sight, he probably just wanted me out of the picture, so I would not drive the price up.

Well the gentleman and I bought the rug very cheaply; no one else was bidding seriously on it. We went back to my home to settle up. When I looked the rug over carefully, I decided that not only did I not like it for myself, but it was not such a prize. So I was happy to have Ali buy me out.

I learned a valuable lesson. Stick to my criteria; buy only what I love, from someone I trust. Also, continue search for knowledge about antique rugs.

But the great era of Persian carpet weaving really begins after 1500 with the foundation of the Safavid dynasty by Shah Ismail. In the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Iran produced many of the great masterpieces of Oriental carpet weaving that are still extant today. Major enters of production seem to have been Tabriz, Kerman, and Isfahan, although there is no firm historical documentation for attributing carpets to the last site.

During this period Persian carpets were exported all over the world, from Japan to Western Europe. It is perhaps significant that the lavish carpets captured as booty from the Ottoman Turks after the Battle of Vienna in 1683 consisted primarily of Persian pieces, even though the Turks were themselves major producers of pile carpets. Persian carpets reached their maximum production in the later nineteenth century by which time they had become virtually synonymous with the concept of the Oriental rug.

During this time a great revival, Iranian weavers recaptured much of the range and quality of the classical Persian predecessors, both at old centers like Tabriz and Kerman, as well as in many new areas of Production like Sultanabad or Kashan. Since that time Persian carpets have been made in an almost dizzying array of styles from the finest urban productions to the boldest village and nomadic pieces.