Bakhtiari | 229 x 146 cm | Nr. 20568

Bakhtiari

Delivery time	2 days
Origin	Persia
Dimensions	229 cm x 146 cm (= 3.34 m²)
Construction	hand-knotted
Material	Pile: wool (hand-spun, natural dyes)
knots	160.000
Condition	pre-owned and cleaned
Edition	one-of-a-kind piece

Origin

The Bakhtiari (also Bachtiari) are an ancient, widely branching people living in south-western Iran. The collective name for their rugs is Bakhtiar or Bakhtiari, where the ‘i’ corresponds to our preposition ‘of’. Bakhtiari rugs – the rugs of the Bakhtiari – take in numerous sub-provenances with a range of pattern types. For all this breadth, Bakhtiar rugs resemble one another in their colour compositions, in their various handcrafted techniques and in their line, which is always floral.

Bakhtiari rugs are made mainly with natural dyes, which feel pleasant despite their intensity and take on a beautiful patina over the years. Frequently used colours are brown for the outlines, plus red, bottle green, yellow and white as a highlight that gives the rug its likeable character.

Material

The technique used to prepare the materials for the pile of this Bakhtiari is over 200 years old. The wool was dyed with natural dyes and spun by hand. Dyeing with natural or plant dyes is more involved, more costly and more time-consuming than dyeing with chemical colours. For a luminous red, for instance, you need around one kilo of ground madder root as a dyestuff per kilo of wool. For a strong yellow that is not too pale, it takes as much as two kilograms of dyer's weld per kilo of wool. Spinning the wool is just as time- and labour-intensive. And fewer and fewer people still master the art of spinning 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 Bakhtiari are made of cotton. This versatile material is tear-resistant and yet has some give, which makes it particularly well suited to a hard-wearing foundation.

Condition

This Bakhtiari has had admirers before you. It was knotted around 46. It has been thoroughly cleaned and is in good but unrestored condition. In places the pile has grown a little thinner. The edges, too, could do with a repair here and there. We have not restored this Bakhtiari because we feel it has a special presence exactly as it is. If you would like us to, we will of course be happy to restore the rug for you. Either way, this Bakhtiari will give you pleasure for decades to come.