Antique Meschkin | 304 x 131 cm | Nr. Z-3323

Mottled antique Meschkin runner, yellow with border and diamonds

Origin	Persia
Dimensions	304 cm x 131 cm (= 3.9824 m²)
Construction	hand-knotted
Material	Pile: wool (hand-spun, natural dyes) Weft & Warp: wool
knots per m²2	120.000
Pile height	5mm
Year of manufacture	1920
Colour	Yellow, Terracotta
Edition	one-of-a-kind piece

Origin

Meschkin Shahr is one of the oldest towns 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 100 years old, and that alone makes it a truly special piece. Antique rugs like this Meschkin remain hugely popular and fetch top prices at renowned auction houses.

Pattern

The decorated surround (border) forms a beautiful contrast to the centre and shapes the transition at the edge of the rug.

In the pattern of this Meschkin it is above all the diamonds that stand out. A diamond is a rhombus standing on one of its points, and in an Oriental rug its four equal sides may be serrated, stepped or set with hooks. The diamond is one of the oldest basic forms in the Oriental rug. In the Islamic world it carries a symbolic meaning: it stands for the immortality of the soul. That is why it is found so often as a filler motif.

The surface of this Meschkin has a mottled look. The shifts in hue and the light-and-dark shading of the pile yarn make the colours shimmer and keep the rug forgiving of dirt. These colour changes, known as abrash, give the rug a livelier feel. The mottling comes about because the wool of this Meschkin was hand-spun. During dyeing, the natural dyes are taken up to differing degrees.

The abstract, geometric composition is what gives this Meschkin its understated elegance. The pattern flatters the design of the room and never steals attention from the furniture, the décor and the architectural elements. It creates a pleasant atmosphere without dominating the style of the room.

The background of this Meschkin is dark blue. The overall impression is also dominated by yellow and terracotta. The border is worked in dark blue and pink.

Condition

You are not the first to take a liking to this Meschkin. It has had owners before you who treasured and used it. It was hand-knotted around 1920. It has been thoroughly cleaned and is in good, though only partly restored, condition. The pile is worn in places. On one side, parts of the border are missing. The rug has a small stain. We have not fully restored this Meschkin, because we feel it has a special presence just the way it is. If you would like us to, we will of course carry on restoring the rug for you. We can bring almost any rug back to near-perfect condition.

Material

The technique used to make the materials for this Meschkin's pile is over 200 years old. The wool was dyed with natural colours 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 isn't too pale, you even need two kilograms of the dyestuff weld per kilo of wool. Spinning the wool is just as time- and labour-intensive. And fewer and fewer people still know how to spin wool by hand.

But the effort is worth it: dyeing with natural colours lets the high-quality wool keep its natural oil 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 just as much in rooms furnished in a more traditional or country style. The foundation (weft and warp threads) of this Meschkin is made of new wool.