Kazak | 285 x 76 cm | Nr. Z-3089

Geometric Kazak runner, pink

Origin	Pakistan
Dimensions	285 cm x 76 cm (= 2.166 m²)
Construction	hand-knotted
Material	Pile: wool (hand-spun, natural dyes) Weft & Warp: cotton
knots per m²2	250.000
Pile height	5mm
Year of manufacture	2024
Colour	Pink, bright colours
Edition	one-of-a-kind piece

Origin

The Kazak (also Kasak) rugs belong to the group of Caucasian rugs. Rugs have been made in the Caucasus since the end of the 18th century. Their hallmark is abstract geometric tribal patterns in primary colours. The geometric and, more rarely, floral motifs are typically rendered in intense, high-contrast colours. In the 19th century a considerable share of these rugs, produced mainly in villages, was exported to the West under Russian control.

This Kazak rug was made from hand-spun wool and natural dyes using a traditional process in Pakistan – hand-knotted.

Pattern

The abstract, geometric composition gives this Kazak its understated elegance. The pattern flatters the design of the room and doesn't draw attention away from the furniture, the decoration and the architectural features. It fits beautifully into any setting and complements a room's furnishings in a subtle way.

The surface of this Kazak looks mottled. The changes in tone and the light-and-dark shading of the pile yarn make the colours shimmer and keep the rug forgiving of dirt. These so-called colour shifts, known as abrash, give the rug a livelier look. The mottled effect comes about because the wool of this Kazak was hand-spun. During dyeing, the natural pigments are absorbed to differing degrees.

The background of this Kazak is pink.

Material

The technique used to produce the materials for the pile of this Kazak is more than 200 years old. The wool was dyed with natural dyes and spun by hand. Dyeing with natural or plant-based 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 dye weld per kilo of wool. Spinning the wool is just as time-consuming and labour-intensive. And fewer and fewer people still master spinning wool by hand.

But the effort is worth it: dyeing with natural colours lets the high-quality wool keep its natural lanolin content. The wool dyed with natural dyes 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-house style. The weft and warp threads of this Kazak are made of cotton. This versatile material is tear-resistant and stretchy, which makes it especially suited to a hard-wearing foundation.