How to Choose a Persian Rug for Your Home

... You take pride in these red, patterned rugs that adorn the walls of your house and the floor of your elegant salon. And you are no doubt proud of these precious kinds of rugs, and your visitors, women and men, are as proud as you.

This is an old rug, whose beauty is that it is very old... And this is another beyond any price...

And this is yet another, magnificent for the designs and pictures upon it.

And now, here you are in the market, among the rug merchants, at a loss to choose a beautiful, sturdy, genuine piece... and afraid, after all that, of being cheated? Here, then, is this article for you.

What Are the Kinds of Persian Rugs?

Persian rugs are divided into three kinds: old rugs, rugs of middle age, and modern rugs.

As for the old rugs, whose history goes back to the fifteenth or sixteenth century and which are known as "Antique" — this is the kind of rug that earned the land of Persia its fame in rug-making... It has become rare to find; most of it is in the great museums of Europe and America... There is, for instance, the rug known as "the Ardabil," now in the Victoria Museum in London; it is considered a marvel of fineness and beauty, its age goes back to the year 1539, and its value cannot be estimated. There is also the famous rug nicknamed "the Kaiser's rug," which was sold in London in 1928 for forty thousand pounds sterling to an American man of wealth.

This old kind of Persian rug has today become like the artistic paintings of the most famous painters, such as the pictures of Raphael and Michelangelo... no material value can be set upon it.

As for the second kind, that of middle age, which is not less than fifty years old, it is the kind sought after today, and it is known by many names according to the country or province in which it was made. There are the "Jiniari," the "Bijari," the "Abar," the "Baluchi," the "Shirazi," and so on...

Quantities of this kind of rug are to be found in the world markets, but they grow fewer year by year owing to the great demand for them, and especially because the modern rugs now made in Persia differ entirely from the old in several respects. For example, the colors of the old Persian rugs are fast, harmonious, and of a beautiful natural luster, because they are extracted from vegetable dyes such as flowers and grasses; and, unlike the modern rugs, their beauty and luster increase the more they are exposed to the natural elements such as air and sun.

The Tabrizi

As for the third, modern kind, known here as "Tabrizi" or "Kerman," which has come to flood the markets these days, it is made with artificial chemical substances such as aniline or alizarin. It is well known of these colors that they fade and change if exposed to sun or air, and the rug may become ugly to look at. This kind of rug differs from the first in that it is made for purely commercial purposes... Usually — and this is something some people may find surprising — the design or pattern is made by the hand of an artist in New York or London, and it may be copied from the old rugs; it is then sent to Persia (Iran), where it is woven in the workshops there on modern lines, for production in large quantities. The old rugs, however, were woven in the homes, most often over a number of years, and the design or pattern was usually created in the imagination of its weaver.

The reader may ask: why do they not make rugs in Persia today by the old methods, that is, using vegetable colors, since these have all these merits?

The answer to that is that vegetable dye costs many times over what the chemical costs, and its making takes a long time. Some colors, for example, may take six months or more to extract from plants, while great quantities of chemical dye can be made in a matter of minutes.

It is truly regrettable that we find in our markets today that the proportion of modern rugs sold is 99 percent — that is, one old rug is sold for every 99 modern ones... The basic reason for this is that the ordinary buyer does not know the difference between the old and the new, and may be taken by the appearance of the modern rug, which is very often washed with "acid" to give it the softness and mellowness of color that distinguish the old rugs; he does not know that after a short while the rug will fade and its colors will wash out, and it will become ugly to look at, like everything imitation.

How Do We Choose One?

It is very difficult, or rather impossible, for the buyer who lacks wide experience of rugs to tell the difference between rugs made with chemical colors and washed with acid, and old rugs made with vegetable colors. This knowledge comes only after viewing a great number of rugs; then the eye grows practiced, and only then does distinguishing become possible. But there are a few simple counsels the buyer may call upon, the chief of which are:

1 — If the rug is perfectly even in its edges and colors, it is most likely new; but if its edges are uneven and there is some variation in the very body of the colors of which it is made — if, for example, there is a red color in one part of the rug and the red in another part is not identical — then it is most likely old. This is because the old rugs were made on wooden looms, and the wood would often bend or lean, so that the edges of the rug came out uneven; and as to the colors, the wool of this or that color might run short, and the same colors could not be obtained as in chemical manufacture.

2 — The rug should be turned over and pressed firmly on all sides; if it has been washed with acid and damaged, it may break in your hands.

3 — Moisten the rug with spirits or with kerosene and rub it a little; if it has been washed, the smell of the acid will appear.

Cleaning Rugs:

Cleaning rugs is one of the matters of great concern to the housewife, and here are some directions that should be followed in cleaning and preserving a rug:

1 — Do not use the electric vacuum cleaner often; if it can be avoided altogether, so much the better, for frequent use of it shortens the life of the rug.

2 — Do not put the rug over a "railing" and expose it to beating, for that harms it greatly, especially in the part near the "railing."

3 — In spring, when you wish to clean the rugs, take them outside, turn the rug over on its back on the ground, use the carpet beater, and then gather the dust from under the rug, repeating this until it is clean; then leave the rug in the open air for a day or two. When putting it away, "naphthalene or D.D.T." should be placed in it, and there is no harm in wiping it with a little kerosene; it is better to roll it rather than fold it. As for using the leaves of the "chinaberry" tree, they must be used dry.

4 — Old rugs with vegetable colors may be washed with native soap made of olive oil and set in the sun, which gives them beauty and luster; but that does not suit new rugs, for setting them in the sun exposes their colors to change.

"The information in this article was prepared by Mr. Albert Khoury, one of the proprietors of the shops of Ibrahim Esber al-Khoury and Sons."