1800s, Caucasian; Shirvan

Carpet, hand knotted woollen pile on woollen warp and weft, Caucasian, 1870s.

WARP: light brown wool; Z3S; 15 threads per inch (57 per dm).

WEFT: light brown wool; Z3S; 2 shoots after each row of knots; 8 knots per inch (32 per dm).

PILE: wool; 8 colours: dark red, light red, yellow, dark green, dark blue, blue, brown, white; symmetrical knot tied around two threads; 60 knots per sq.inch (912 per sq. dm).

SIDE FINISH: web of 4 cords overcast with yellow wool in the lower half and with blocks of yellow, blue and red in the upper half.

END FINISH: Lower: immediately below the pile is one pass of weft twining with yellow wool and then 1" (2 cms) of plainweave with light brown wool and with a fringe of warp loops 1" (2.5cms) long. Upper: incomplete. Weft twining with light blue wool and then 1cm of plainweave with light brown wool and then loose warp threads.

DESIGN: Field:dark blue ground with one row of 4 and one half diamonds alternately single and doubly hooked and filled (apart from the third) with small motifs of a diamond and 2 triangles suspended from a bar. The third has a chequerboard filling which is repeated within small diamonds elsewhere on the field together with the pendant and other geometric motifs.
Main border: white ground with a line of indented octagons and, within, a decorated square.
Inner border: blue zigzag overlying diagonal coloured blocks.
Outer border: reciprocal diamond heads in dark green and red, outlined in white.
Catalogue Date: 3.6.97

Many Caucasian carpets woven in the 1870s and 1880s, such as this, are narrower along their upper border than they are along the lower border. If the carpet industry was expanding at the time, as it was in Iran, the weavers might have been working with insufficient supervision - perhaps they were unaccustomed to weaving long runners, which was what Europeans wanted for the corridors and landings of their homes.

53-1880