Kars | 196 x 139 cm | Nr. Z-530

Geometric Kars, terracotta with border, diamonds and medallion

Origin	Turkey
Dimensions	196 cm x 139 cm (= 2.72 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	1980
Colour	Terracotta, blue-grey
Edition	one-of-a-kind piece

Origin

This Kars rug was knotted by Caucasian people living around the town of Kars. With just under 90,000 inhabitants, Kars lies in north-eastern Anatolia, some 45 km west of the border with Armenia and 65 km south of the Turkish-Georgian border, at an altitude of 1768 m.

Pattern

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

The abstract, geometric composition is what gives this Kars its understated elegance. The pattern flatters the way a room is furnished and never takes attention away from the furniture, the decoration and the architectural details. It creates a pleasant atmosphere without dominating the style of the room.

In the pattern of this Kars it is above all the diamonds that catch the eye. A diamond is a rhombus standing on one of its points, and in an Oriental rug its four equal sides may be serrated, outlined with stitching 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 so often found as a filler motif.

At the middle of the central field of this Kars lies the symmetrical centre, also known as the medallion. The design of the field is subordinate to the medallion, creating the impression that the medallion is floating on the field.

The background of this Kars is terracotta. The border is worked in terracotta and blue-grey. In the blue-grey centre, beige and terracotta are combined.

Condition

You are not the first to take a liking to this Kars. It has had owners before you who treasured and used it. It was hand-knotted around 1980. We have cleaned it thoroughly and restored it with great care. Despite its age, it is therefore in very good condition.

Material

The technique used to make the materials for the pile of this Kars is over 200 years old. The wool was dyed with natural colours and spun by hand. Dyeing with natural or plant dyes is more involved, more expensive and more time-consuming than dyeing with chemical colours. For a luminous red, for example, you need roughly one kilo of ground madder root as dye per kilo of wool. For a strong yellow that is not too pale you even need two kilograms of weld per kilo of wool. Spinning the wool is labour-intensive and takes time as well. 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 lets the high-quality wool keep its natural oils. 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 traditional or country-house style. The foundation (weft and warp threads) of this Kars is made of new wool.