Rugsville Gabriel Tabriz Oriental Brown Hand Knotted Wool Persian Carpet 63316

The Tabriz school built its reputation on technical precision. Weavers there worked with the Persian asymmetric knot at densities the carpet trade considered the upper register of what the human hand could sustain over months at a loom. The pattern in this carpet sits squarely in that tradition.

The carpet was set up at a vertical loom, where a small team of weavers worked it for several months. Knot count consistent with the pile depth and the loom configuration the workshop uses for this design. The pile is long-staple New Zealand wool, spun in modest batches and dyed before it ever reached the loom. The dyes were drawn from madder root, indigo, walnut hull, and oak gall, prepared in copper vats and matured for two to three weeks before the yarn was lowered.

The composition

A brown ground worked from walnut hull, a slow dye that deepens for the first decade of use rather than fading. The pattern sits in the curvilinear vocabulary the Tabriz workshops codified across the late Qajar and Pahlavi periods, with arabesque vine work, palmette repeats, and a layered border the eye reads in three bands. The slight irregularity in the dye, what the trade calls abrash, is not a flaw. It is the visible record of small batches dyed at separate moments and worked into the field at the loom.

What you are buying

Antique Tabriz carpets with comparable composition and pile, when they appear at all at Christie's, Sotheby's, or Rippon Boswell, sit in a price band that the new weaving in the same tradition will not approach for two generations. The rug appreciates with use rather than depreciating, which is a property no other object on a floor carries at any price. The cost per year over a sixty-year working life puts the piece below the cost of a printed reproduction with a five-year horizon. The list price of around Rs 23,097 reflects a workshop equivalent on the open market; the listed price brings the rug down to the level of a serious entry into collecting hand-knotted wool.

The piece in a room

At the size as listed the rug carries a primary room without dominating it. Mid-tone walls hold the saturation. Direct sunlight helps the dye depth that interior light slowly washes out. The pattern reads at a distance and rewards approach with the small irregularities only a hand-knotted carpet carries.

Conservation

Rotate the rug 180 degrees every six months so foot traffic and direct light age the field evenly. Use suction only on the vacuum, with the beater bar lifted. Blot any spill immediately with cotton, never rub a wet stain into the pile. A wool-trained hand wash every five years restores the lustre.

Reference

• Medium: hand-knotted New Zealand wool on cotton foundation
• Dimensions: size as listed
• Construction: Persian asymmetric knot
• Knot density: ~120 KPSI
• Hands: a small team of weavers, several months
• Pile: 10 mm long-staple wool
• Dye: vegetable (madder, indigo, walnut hull, oak gall)
• Origin: India

Delivered free across India. Cash on delivery available. 7-day exchange from receipt.