Persian and oriental rug buying

The back tells you everything

Turn the rug over. On a hand-knotted piece, the design on the face is found in full on the back, knot by knot, with the irregularities of a human hand. On a machine-made rug, the back is smooth and regular, often hidden by a glued-on backing cloth. That is the first sort, and it governs everything else.

Next comes density. A square one decimetre a side is enough: up to 10,000 knots the piece is excellent, around 2,500 it is average, towards 500 it is low. The Persian scale, for its part, counts in raj, one unit being six knots per linear centimetre.

Then the knot itself. The senneh, asymmetric, wraps one warp thread completely and the next only halfway: it allows a very fine design, and it is the knot of Persia. The ghiordes, symmetric, wraps both threads and gives a harder-wearing pile: Turkey, the Caucasus. The jofti, tied over two warp threads at once, saves wool and time, and shows on the back.

Recognising the origin

Iran first, because it is the market's reference. Tabriz: central medallion, quarter-medallions in the corners, interlaced scrolling vines. Kashan: silk, hunting scenes. Herat: a red field of interlaced vine stems and palmettes. Kerman: the vase technique. Heriz: a geometricised, angular medallion. Qom: small formats, very fine, often in silk. Bidjar: so dense and so heavy that it is called the iron rug. Baluch: small dark formats, midnight blue and red-brown.

Turkey knots in ghiordes, on a more robust pile, often as a prayer niche. Hereke there denotes fine silk at very high density, a name that counts in Belgium. The Caucasus gives vivid geometric motifs, sharp contrasts, stepped medallions, no floral curves, small to medium formats. Afghanistan and Turkmenistan cover a brick-red field with guls, those octagonal medallions repeated in staggered rows: the Bukhara rugs sold in Belgium come from this family.

China is recognisable by a restrained palette, blue and ivory or pink and cream, by isolated motifs on a plain ground and by a pile often carved in relief around the design, for a lower density. The kilim has no pile at all: flat-woven, reversible, identical on both sides, slit vertically where the wefts turn back between two blocks of colour.

Persian or Indo-Persian: we say so

A large share of the rugs sold in Belgium in the 1970s and 1980s are Indian or Pakistani productions copying Persian designs: Indo-Tabriz, Indo-Kashan. The knot is often senneh, the wool sound, the design faithful, and the value markedly lower than that of the original.

We tell you before we make an offer, not after. A seller who is told from the outset that he holds a copy is no longer in a position to be misled: it is the only way to make an offer verifiable. Frankness works the other way round too, and it happens that we single out a piece its owner thought worthless.

Worn, moth-eaten, faded: do not throw it away

The moth does not eat the rug: it eats the keratin in the wool. The cotton warp and weft remain intact, and that is why a moth-eaten area is re-knotted instead of being replaced. A rug that has been eaten therefore keeps its origin, its density and its age, that is to say the essentials of what makes its price.

The same goes for dye bleed, a torn-off fringe, a run selvedge or a pile faded by the sun. These faults can be costed, they are deducted from the offer, they do not cancel it. The one-third rule serves as a marker: when the restoration exceeds a third of the market value, it ceases to be economically defensible. But the piece itself always sells, and it is we who carry the restoration after the purchase.

Valuation and payment

Send three photographs, face, back and a close-up of the knotting, with the exact dimensions in centimetres, measured excluding the fringes. You receive a costed price range within 48 working hours, confirmed or adjusted in front of you at the physical examination. The visit is free and without obligation.

Payment is made on the day of collection: cash up to €3,000, instant transfer or banker's draft above that, the same day. That is the Belgian legal limit on any cash payment, set by article 67 of the Act of 18 September 2017 on the prevention of money laundering. Collection is free and you keep an itemised receipt.