Iran

IRAN

VILLLAGE PIECES

As the name applies these are village woven rugs where the looms are fixed in place unlike nomadic looms that are constantly on the move. Here cotton is usually used as the foundation of the rug (warp). Many of the rugs come from the Hamadan region which is the market town where all the outlying villagers come to sell their wares. We try to identify as far as possible the exact provenance of each piece so that you as a buyer can undertake your own further research.

BELOUCHI SOUMAK

The rugs woven in the volatile province of Belouchistan are some of the most beautiful and collectable tribal rugs found in Iran today. Usually quite fine and utilising a combination of pile carpet and soumak flat weave which gives these pieces their amazing multi-dimensional quality. Buying such pieces can become irresistible hence we think they should show a government warning saying that ‘buying rugs can seriously damage your wealth’

TRIBAL PIECES
There are many tribal groups in Iran that have consolidated into groups to give safety in numbers from persecution from regimes old and new. Some of the more famous tribal pieces come from the nomadic Qash'qa’i people who wander southern Iran around the old Persian capital of Persepolis. They sell their wares in the bazaars of the beautiful market city of Shiraz, famous also for the Persian poets of Hafez and Saadi. The looms used are always on the move and the rugs are generally totally made from wool being the most available material to hand. Other tribal pieces found are from the Luris, Afschars, Shahsavan and Bachtiars. However, we are constantly looking to find pieces to ever expand our tribal stocks.

FINE PIECES

We generally do not stock more than a few pieces of fine Iranian carpets such as Tabriz Mahe, Nain and Qums. The local market for these pieces in Iran has forced the price to sometimes three or four times the equivalent quality from India or Pakistan. So unless one is a collector of such pieces we feel it is better from a decorative and budgetary standpoint to buy this quality of rug from India or Pakistan. In fact we have found several master weavers from Iran setting up workshops in the Varanasi region of Uttar Pradesh in India to take advantage of the lower labour charges and to access high quality and high sheen New Zealand wools to produce Indo-Persians virtually indistinguishable from their Persian counterparts except for the price.