Silk rug buying

Real silk, mercerised cotton, viscose

Three materials look alike in a photograph and are not worth the same. Real silk is a continuous filament: cool to the touch, very strong under tension, and its sheen changes as you walk around the rug, light from one side, dark from the other. Mercerised cotton imitates the lustre but stays matt at an angle and creases. Viscose, the artificial silk of Indian and Pakistani production, loses its body in damp and lies down permanently where people walk.

The fringes often give the foundation away. On a fully silk rug, the warp itself is silk and the fringes are fine, supple and lustrous. A thick cotton fringe under a lustrous pile signals silk on a cotton foundation: that is not disqualifying, but it is stated and it is costed.

On silk, density decides everything

On wool, fineness is one criterion among others. On silk, it is the criterion. The asymmetric senneh knot allows densities that wool does not reach: above 500,000 knots per square metre the quality is superior, and exceptional pieces approach a million. The Persian scale counts in raj, one unit being six knots per linear centimetre; the higher the count, the more detailed the design can be.

This fineness is seen before it is counted: a curve that is genuinely curved, a face that reads in a hunting scene, a clear inscription in a cartouche. A design that steps under a magnifier is a low-density design, whatever the material. It is the first thing we look at on the close-up you send.

Qom, Kashan, Hereke

Three names structure the silk market. Qom, in Iran: small formats, very fine, often entirely in silk. Kashan: silk and hunting scenes. Hereke, in Turkey: fine silk at very high density, a name strong enough in Belgium for a Flemish workshop to have made it its trading name.

Alongside pieces made entirely of silk, two categories remain sought after: wool rugs with silk incorporated, where the silk outlines the design and catches the light, and those containing gold thread. Conversely, the rugs of the 1970s and 1980s with neither silk nor metal have broadly lost ground on the market.

What damages a silk rug

Silk forgives neither water nor sun. A domestic wash makes the reds bleed and leaves watermarks that nothing puts right. Prolonged exposure to full light kills the sheen irreversibly on the exposed face, and the difference shows when the piece is turned over. Do not wash it, do not shampoo it, do not have anything done to it before showing us the rug.

Wear to the pile, a damaged fringe or an open selvedge, on the other hand, prevent nothing. Silk is re-knotted, fringes are remade, a missing part of the design is reconstructed from the symmetrical side. A tired silk rug is still a silk rug: the material, the density and the origin do not wear out.

Valuation and payment

Three photographs, face, back and a close-up of the knotting, plus the dimensions to the centimetre, fringes excluded. On silk, add a shot against the light if you can: the sheen and the fineness of the pile read better there than from the front. You receive a costed answer within 48 working hours.

We then come out for the physical examination, with no obligation on your part. If you sell, collection is free and payment is made the same day: cash up to €3,000, instant transfer or banker's draft above that. That is the Belgian legal ceiling on cash payments, applying to everyone, set by article 67 of the Act of 18 September 2017 on the prevention of money laundering. An itemised receipt is handed over on sale.