Antique Tabriz | 380 x 282 cm | Nr. Z-1209

Antique Tabriz

Delivery time	2 days
Origin	Persia
Dimensions	380 cm x 282 cm (= 10.72 m²)
Construction	hand-knotted
Material	Pile: wool (hand-spun, natural dyes) Weft & Warp: cotton
knots	250.000
Year of manufacture	1920
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 106 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

This Antique Tabriz had admirers before you. It was knotted in around 1920. It has been thoroughly cleaned and is in good, though only partly restored, condition. The pile is worn in places. The edges are damaged in places. The fringes could do with a repair. We have not fully restored this Antique Tabriz, because we feel it has a special presence just as it is. If that is what you would like, we will of course carry on restoring the rug for you. We can bring almost any rug back to near-perfect condition.