Antique Tabriz | 163 x 124 cm | Nr. Z-328

Antique Tabriz

Delivery time	2 days
Origin	Persia
Dimensions	163 cm x 124 cm (= 2.02 m²)
Construction	hand-knotted
Material	Pile: wool (hand-spun, natural dyes) Weft & Warp: cotton
knots	490.000
Year of manufacture	1900
Condition	pre-owned, cleaned & partially restored
Edition	one-of-a-kind piece

Origin

Standing on Persia's northern border at the crossroads of countless caravan routes, the city of Tabriz (also written Tabris or Täbriz) has always been a melting pot of different ethnic and religious groups. Although the city lies on the border with Azerbaijan, the dialect spoken in Tabriz is related to Turkish. The bazaars of Tabriz have traded in craftwork for centuries, and above all in rugs from the surrounding villages.

This antique Tabriz is a collector's piece. It is around 126 years old, and that alone makes it something truly special. Antique rugs like this Antique Tabriz remain hugely popular and fetch top prices at renowned auction houses.

Material

The technique used to make the materials for the pile of this Antique Tabriz is more than 200 years old. The wool was dyed with natural dyes and spun by hand. Dyeing with natural or plant dyes is more complicated, more expensive and more time-consuming than dyeing with chemical colours. For a luminous red, for example, you need around one kilo of ground madder root as dyestuff per kilo of wool. For a strong yellow that is not too pale, as much as two kilograms of the dyestuff weld are needed per kilo of wool. Spinning the wool is just as time-consuming and labour-intensive. On top of that, fewer and fewer people still know how to spin wool by hand.

But the effort is worth it: dyeing with natural colours allows the high-quality wool to keep its natural oil content. Wool that has been dyed with natural colours and spun by hand creates fascinating, shimmering patterns. The charm of hand-spun wool, with its slight irregularities and natural shades, comes into its own as a contrast in modern interiors, but equally in rooms furnished in a more traditional or country style.

The weft and warp threads of this Antique Tabriz are made of cotton. This versatile material is tear-resistant and elastic, which makes it particularly well suited to a hard-wearing foundation.

Condition

You are not the first to take a liking to this Antique Tabriz. It has had owners before you who valued and used it. It was knotted around 1900. It has been thoroughly cleaned and is in good, though only partly restored, condition. The fringes could do with a repair here and there. Over the years the pile has become a little thinner in places. On closer inspection, part of the border is missing too, and it also shows a few lighter stains. We have not fully restored this Antique Tabriz because we feel it has a special charm just as it is. If you would like us to, we will of course gladly carry on restoring the rug for you. We can bring almost any rug back to near-perfect condition.