Vintage Persian and Oriental Rugs

The oldest surviving pile rug – the Pazyryk carpet, found in a burial mound in the Altai Mountains – is around 2,500 years old. The technique has changed little since: the weaver ties thousands of individual wool knots onto the warp threads, row by row, and the pattern emerges from the colours of the knots. Two schools developed in Persia: city workshops, which wove from drawn designs, and tribal rugs, woven from memory by nomadic clans.

A mid-20th-century Persian rug is today a sensible alternative to a new one: the wool is already worn in and stable, the colours have matured, and a well-kept piece will last for decades more.

Most are Persian rugs from the Hamadan and Zanjan regions, as well as Isfahan, Saruk, Senneh (today Sanandaj) and Afshar. Shiraz and Qashqai rugs were woven by nomadic tribes of Fars province – their patterns are simpler and geometric, the weave less regular. From Afghanistan come Ersari Turkmen rugs; from Pakistan, Bokhara rugs with a repeated gul motif and prayer rugs with a mihrab.

Turn the rug over: on a hand-knotted piece the pattern on the back is almost as clear as on the front, and the knots are slightly irregular. The fringe is an extension of the warp, not a sewn-on tape. Small asymmetries in the pattern and variations in the shade of the wool, known as abrash, are typical and not a flaw. A machine-made rug has perfectly even rows and often a stiff, glued backing.

Vacuum a wool rug without a rotating brush, in the direction of the pile, and turn it through 180 degrees once a year so that it wears evenly. Deal with stains straight away by blotting, not rubbing. Every few years it is worth having the rug professionally hand-washed – machine wet cleaning can damage the colours and the warp.