Antique Meschkin | 212 x 152 cm | Nr. Z-349

Antique Meschkin

Delivery time	2 days
Origin	Persia
Dimensions	212 cm x 152 cm (= 3.22 m²)
Construction	hand-knotted
Material	Pile: wool (hand-spun, natural dyes)
knots	200.000
Condition	pre-owned, cleaned & partially restored
Edition	one-of-a-kind piece

Origin

Meschkin Shahr is one of the oldest cities in Iran. It lies about 900 km from the capital, Tehran, in the north-west of the country in the province of Azerbaijan. The patterns of Meschkin rugs follow traditional Caucasian designs.

This antique Meschkin is a collector's piece. It is around 96 years old, and that alone makes it a truly special piece. Antique rugs like this Antique Meschkin are still very much in demand and fetch top prices at renowned auction houses.

Material

The technique used to produce the materials for the pile of this Antique Meschkin 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, it even takes two kilograms of the dyestuff weld per kilo of wool. Spinning the wool is just as time-consuming and labour-intensive. What is more, 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 foundation (weft and warp threads) of this Antique Meschkin is made of new wool.

Condition

You are not the first to take a liking to this Antique Meschkin. It has had owners before you who valued and used it. It was knotted around 96. It has been thoroughly cleaned and is in good but only partly restored condition. The pile has grown a little thinner in places over the years. There are also 3 tears of around 4cm in length. We have not fully restored this Antique Meschkin, because we feel it has a special presence just as it is. If that is what you would like, we will of course happily restore the rug further for you. We can bring almost any rug back to near-perfect condition.