Malayer | 165 x 112 cm | Nr. 20572

Geometric Malayer, light red with border

Origin	Persia
Dimensions	165 cm x 112 cm (= 1.85 m²)
Construction	hand-knotted
Material	Pile: wool (hand-spun, natural dyes) Weft: wool Warp: cotton
knots per m²2	120.000
Pile height	7mm
Year of manufacture	1910
Colour	Light red, dark blue
Edition	one-of-a-kind piece

Origin

Malayer is the second-largest city in Hamadan province in western Iran and is known for its rug-knotting workshops. Malayer lies between Hamadan and Khorramabad, 380 km south-west of Tehran. The town as we know it today was founded in 1808 under the name Daulatabad, in order to bring the restless region along the Zagros mountains under the control of the Persian state.

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 Malayer its understated elegance. The pattern flatters the design of the room and never draws attention away from the furniture, the décor and the architectural features. It creates a pleasant atmosphere without dominating the style of the room.

The surface of this Malayer has a mottled look. The shifts in hue and the light-and-dark shading of the pile yarn run across the length of the rug, making the colours shimmer and leaving the rug forgiving of dirt and marks. These so-called colour shifts, known as abrash, give the rug a livelier character. The mottling comes about because the wool of this Malayer was spun by hand. During dyeing, the natural dyes are absorbed unevenly.

The background of this Malayer is beige. Light red and dark blue also dominate the overall impression. The border is worked in beige and light red.

Condition

This Malayer has a history. It was hand-knotted around 1910. It has been thoroughly cleaned and is in good, though only partly restored, condition. In places the pile has become a little flatter. The edges and fringes could also do with a repair in parts. Beyond that, sections of the border are missing on both sides. We have not fully restored this Malayer because we think it has a special presence just as it is. If you would like us to, we will of course happily 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 the pile of this Malayer 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 lanolin. 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 just as much in rooms furnished in a more traditional or country style. The weft threads of this Malayer are wool. Cotton was used for the warp threads.