Isfahan rugs

A capital, two ages of weaving

Isfahan is in central Iran. Shah Abbas I made it his capital in 1598, and for a century the city became the home of the royal manufactories: silk rugs, wool rugs highlighted with metal thread, designs of a complexity nothing then equalled. That age ends with the fall of the Safavid dynasty at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and workshop weaving disappears almost entirely.

The second age begins in the 1920s and 1930s, when workshops re-form by taking up the Safavid vocabulary again. It reaches its technical peak between 1950 and 1970. Almost every Isfahan seen in Belgium dates from that period. The formats are on the small to medium side: at these densities a large rug represents years at the loom, and few were woven.

Silk warp, kork wool pile

The knot is Persian, asymmetric, as in every centre of the central plateau. The density is high: commonly 500,000 to 1,000,000 knots per square metre, and more on exceptional pieces. The pile is kork wool, the fine wool taken from the neck and belly of the lamb, almost always accompanied by silk highlights that pick out outlines, stems and certain petals.

The distinctive feature of the construction lies elsewhere: at Isfahan the warp is frequently silk, the weft cotton or silk. For a private owner this is the most convenient point to check, because it is read from the fringes. A silk warp gives fine, shiny, supple fringes, which yellow with age and have neither the stiffness nor the whiteness of cotton. Beware, however, of the most frequent misunderstanding: a silk warp does not make a silk rug. In the great majority of Isfahans, the pile you walk on is wool.

The pile is very low, of the order of three to five millimetres. That is the direct consequence of the density: at a million knots per square metre, a long pile would clog the design. It also means that the reserve of wear is small, and we shall come back to that.

Symmetry as a method

The classic Isfahan composition is a central medallion, most often circular or lobed, with pendants, set on a field of islimi scrolls and palmettes known as Shah Abbas, framed by multiple borders, one main and several narrow. Ivory, sky blue and pinkish beige grounds dominate. Trees of life, mihrabs and vase compositions are also found.

The feature that really distinguishes one is not the motif but the discipline of the drawing. An Isfahan is symmetrical from one side to the other down to the line, its outlines are crisp because the density allows it, and its gradations are carried through without a break. A copy of the same design, Indian or Chinese, is recognised by a density often half as high, a softer back, blurred outlines, and highlights in shiny viscose in place of silk. The fringes of the copy are cotton.

The signature, the masters, and what it is worth

Many Isfahans carry, in a cartouche in the upper border, the name of the workshop or of the master woven in Persian script. Some of these names are known to dealers and carry weight on the international market. Two reservations are nevertheless in order. A workshop name covers several hands and several qualities, sometimes across several decades. And a signature is copied exactly as a design is copied.

The criteria that really decide are elsewhere: the density counted on the back, the fineness and the lustre of the kork wool, the proportion and the quality of the silk, the number of shades used and the crispness of the outlines, the condition of the pile and of the foundation, the format. A signature is added to all that; it does not replace it.

A fine rug is not handled like a thick one

Three to five millimetres of pile is very little. A millimetre of wear is already visible there, where it would pass unnoticed on a Heriz. An Isfahan therefore goes neither in a corridor nor under a dining table whose chairs are pushed back ten times a day. Regular rotation and a non-slip underlay do the rest.

The silk warp shifts the problem of the fringes. Silk dries out, yellows and breaks with time, faster than cotton does. A silk fringe can be rebuilt, but with silk: a fringe remade in cotton on a rug with a silk warp fools nobody, the difference in sheen and in handle stays legible for life. It is slow work, described on the fringes page.

In washing, the presence of silk closes several doors. No alkalinity above pH 8, no heat, no firm brushing on the silk areas, measured extraction and a rapid, uniform flat drying. Silk marks at the edge of a damp area: on a rug that contains it, you do not clean a stain in its corner without treating the whole surface, or you replace a stain with a tidemark. The detail of the protocol is on the silk rugs page.

What cannot be restored, finally. A pile worn flat on a design of this fineness can technically be reknotted at the original density, but the repair stays perceptible in raking light, and the working time is rarely proportionate to the object. A silk lustre burnt by an alkaline product does not come back: there is no treatment for repolishing a fibre that has lost its polish. We say so before accepting the piece.