Old Afshari | 170 x 121 cm | Nr. Z-1781

Old Afshari, rust red with border and medallion

Origin

The Afshar (also spelled Afschar) were an important Oghuz tribe. The "i" in the name Afshari corresponds to our preposition "of". Afshari therefore means a rug of the Afshar. The Persian Afshar originally lived in the north-west of Iran, on the Afghan border. Part of the tribe was forcibly resettled to the south-east of Iran, near the city of Kerman, which lies on the Silk Road. There, rug knotting became an important source of income for the Afshar. Ever since the resettlement, the Afshar have also been known for their distinctive hand-knotted Afshar rugs. Their rugs are sometimes traded as Sirdjan rugs as well. The rugs have red and blue tones and mostly geometric patterns. The most widespread pattern has a field in the centre holding one or more square rosettes. This central field is thought to represent a stretched animal hide. This old Afshari is around 80 years old and a true collector's piece.

Pattern

The ornate border forms a wonderful contrast with the centre and shapes the transition at the edge of the rug.

At the heart of this Afshari's central field lies the symmetrical centrepiece, also known as the medallion. The design of the field is subordinate to the medallion, so that the medallion appears to float on the field.

The background of this Afshari is rust red. The border is worked in dark blue, curry and beige. In the dark blue centre, beige and curry are combined.

Condition

This Afshari has had admirers before you. It was hand-knotted around 1940. It has been thoroughly cleaned and is in good but unrestored condition. The pile is worn down in places. The fringes could do with a repair. We have not restored this Afshari because we feel it has a special presence just as it is. If that is what you want, we will of course be happy to restore the rug for you. Either way, this Afshari will bring you pleasure for decades to come.

Material

The technique used to make the materials for the pile of this Afshari is over 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 you even need two kilograms of the dyestuff weld per kilo of wool. Spinning the wool is time- and labour-intensive as well. And fewer and fewer people still know how to spin wool by hand.

But the effort is worth it: because it is dyed with natural colours, the high-grade wool keeps its natural lanolin content. Wool dyed with natural colours and spun by hand creates fascinating, shifting 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-house style. The foundation (weft and warp threads) of this Afshari is made of new wool.