Publications, Newspaper Cuttings, Photographs and Correspondence about Persia and the Persian Gulf [‎276r] (552/879)

256 SOME PERSIAN RUGS.
CONSERVATIVE estimate of the value
(before exportation) of the rugs sent
abroad from the district of Sultanabad, which in
cludes nearly 200 villages in a radius of twenty-
five miles, is £75,000. The industry here is prin
cipally in the hands of the Persian Manufacturing
Company and of Ziegler and Co., whose managers
and assistants, with their wives, form a charming
little European colony.
— Lord Curzon, in his chapter on Persian resources
and manufactures, dismisses the Sultanabad in
dustry in a brief andalmost contemptuous manner,
which leaves it to be implied that the introduc
tion, not of European methods so much as Euro
pean supervision, is responsible for the present
lack of originality in rug manufacture and the
use of aniline dyes. His example has been fol
lowed by nearly everyone who speaks or writes
about Persian rugs, and indeed more rubbish is
talked and believed about them than is even the
case with antique porcelain or Chinese cloisonne.
Dr. Willis, for instance, who certainly ought to
have known better, warns his readers to beware of
rugs with dyed cotton borders, which he regards
as a sure sign that they are “ made for the
market.” This, indeed, is the phrase that is con
stantly used as a token of disparagement when
speaking of modern work, and especially of the
Sultanabad products, just as if ninety-nine out
of every hundred rugs had not always been
“ made for the market.”
The result is that the slightly sophisticated
traveller who turns up his nose at a Sultanabad
rug, which, it is quite true, he could buy equally
well in London, spends enormous sums on the
veriest trash which has been hawked for ages
about the bazaars of Teheran and Ispahan just
because it is dirty and worn out, and in a word,
an “antique.” Of course, he desires something
which he cannot buy in Europe, something
characteristic of the country, and herein doubt-
less he has reason, for if he wants something
really characteristic of Persia he will do well to
buy anything you please that is worn out, faded,
and, generally speaking, worthless. This at least
will be Persian. Or again, there are still in the
country a few really valuable old rugs, made at
enormous expense as offerings for some shrine or
as gifts for kings or ministers. These are not in
the market, however, can seldom be come by or
bought, and then only at prohibitive prices.
The ordinary purchaser, who is not intent on
mere age and dirt, and who wants a rug because
it is either useful, beautiful, or valuable, must
buy modern wares, and it would hardly be going
too far to say that he must patronize one of the
foreign firms. To blame these firms for lack of
originality or the use of inferior dyes is grossly
unfair. Originality in artistic work has long
been dead in Persia. This is apparent to the
most casual observer who glances at the modern
tile work or the silver work, or rugs sold by
natives. In rugs, particularly, there is not the
slightest tendency to diverge from the same old
designs which stamp the products of Beluchistan
or Kerman, of Yezd, of Khorassan, and of Kurdi
stan. The rawest amateur in looking at a native
rug can proclaim its origin in a moment, or can,
at all events, give the original locality of the
design and style of workmanship from which it
is copied. The design is more or less badly exe
cuted, and the colours are more or less pleasing,
or the reverse, generally the reverse—and that is
all. The die was made long ago, and has not
been broken or renewed, but merely worn out.
The most characteristic, perhaps, though not the
most beautiful, are the designs peculiar to certain
tribes—designs such as are found in the Beluch
carpets, or the Kurdish, or the Turkoman.
The most beautiful, to European ways of think-
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do not spoil the purity or ..
But in Persian hands even the _
now become stereotyped and stale, besides
gradually losing their pristine freedom of line.
It is only in European museums that they can
be seen at their best. Among the natives rug
making has settled down into certain grooves,
into which new ideas are introduced only through
the vitiating medium of Manchester prints. But
this is not entirely true of the rugs made under
the supervision of the two European firms of
Sultanabad. Here, if anywhere in Persia, variety,
and occasionally originality, of design is to be
found. It must be understood that these two
firms do not superintend factories run on Euro
pean lines. Their rugs are made in Sultanabad
and the surrounding villages exactly as they are
anywhere else in Persia. It is the business of the
firms to supply the wools and the dyes and to
dictate the patterns and to receive the work when
finished.
Sometimes they buy up rugs that are brought
in to them by villagers who have made them with
their own material, according to their own ideas ;
but, generally speaking, each rug is made accord
ing to instructionsand subject to a contract price.
They have hundreds of designs collected from all
sources, copies of ancient patterns, designs from
European firms or inventions of their own, while
they have specially retained Persian designers
who are paid to do nothing else but invent. I
have looked through folios in the office of the
Persian Manufacturing Company which contain
exact copies, with the true colouring, of the re
nowned Persian rugs in the mansions and
museums of Europe; ilor is there a famous rug
in existence which cannot be copied for you
exactly by one of the two firms, provided always
that you are prepared to pay the price. They
are, in fact, reinforced by all the ancient
examples, and they introduce at the same time
whatever there is of individuality or originality
in rug painting to-day in either Europe, America,
or Persia. If it be argued that the old master-
pieces are the best, that is only equivalent to
maintaining that the well of invention in this
direction has run dry, and that there is a natural
limit to the decorative patterns which are proper
for rugs. At all events, if you cannot find origi
nality here, you will find it nowhere else in Persia.
It is equally false and even more unfair to sug
gest that the two firms I have named are respon
sible in any way for the introduction of the cheap
aniline dyes which have done so much to ruin the
rug industry in Persia. On the contrary, it is
almost necessary to go to Sultanabad to avoid the
iernicious influence of chemical preparation,
loth the foreign firms have dyeing experts, and
as they dye their own wool, and for the most part
export rugs that are made with their own wool,
one may be reasonably sure that the colours will
not fade or run. Indigo is used for blue, madder
for red, and grape skins with alum for yellow.
The greens and browns and all the different shades
are made from mixtures or dilutions of these
vegetable substances. The result is not only seen
in the durability of the colours, but in the rich
ness and softness of hue. It is not in Sultanabad,
but in nearly all the other districts of Persia, that
the use of aniline dyes—in spite of the embargo
on their importation—combined with a natural
crudeness of taste, produces such distressing re
sults. In other respects also, such as the quality
of the material, Sultanabad rugs are generally
found to be superior, and, as they are made for
European and American use, their size and shape
are adapted to European houses, which is a con
siderable advantage, except in the eyes of those
who consider that a rug is more beautiful because
it is made long and narrow to fit the general style
of a Persian dwelling.