Kazak | 316 x 242 cm | Nr. Z-575

Geometric Kazak, light green with border and diamonds

Origin	Pakistan
Dimensions	316 cm x 242 cm (= 7.65 m²)
Construction	hand-knotted
Material	Pile: wool (hand-spun, natural dyes) Weft & Warp: cotton
knots per m²2	200.000
Pile height	6mm
Year of manufacture	2022
Colour	Light green, light blue
Edition	one-of-a-kind piece

Origin

Kazak rugs (also spelled Kasak) 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. Typically, the geometric and, more rarely, floral motifs are rendered in intense, high-contrast colours. In the 19th century, a considerable share of these largely village-made rugs was exported to the West under Russian control.

This Kazak rug was hand-knotted in Pakistan following a traditional method, using hand-spun wool and natural dyes.

Pattern

The edge of the rug is framed by a surround (border). The border forms a splendid contrast to the centre.

The abstract, geometric composition is what gives this Kazak its understated elegance. The pattern flatters the design of a room and never draws attention away from the furniture, the decoration or the architectural features. It settles beautifully into any setting and complements the furnishings of a room in a subtle way.

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

In the pattern of this Kazak 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 can be serrated, outlined 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 appears so often as a filler motif.

The background of this Kazak is light green. The border is kept in light blue.

Material

The technique used to prepare 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 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, you even need two kilograms of weld per kilo of wool. Spinning the wool is just as time-consuming and labour-intensive. What is more, fewer and fewer people still master spinning wool by hand.

But the effort is worth it: because it is dyed with natural colours, the high-quality wool keeps its natural lanolin 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, unfolds as a contrast in modern interiors, but just as happily in rooms furnished in a more traditional or country style. The weft and warp threads of this Kazak are made of cotton. This versatile material is tear-resistant and elastic, which makes it especially well suited to a hard-wearing foundation.