Middle East - Turkish Rugs

Ivory field, ivory border, generally very light tonality without being pastel make this squarish antique Oushak carpet special. The fieldhaslf-drop array of tiny, leafy flowers conti...

A vintage Turkish flat-woven Kilim rug from the mid-20th century.

A modern Turkish flat-woven Kilim style rug from the 21st century.

A vintage Turkish flat-weave Kilim accent carpet handmade during the mid-20th century. Measures: 6' 10" x 9' 7" Flat-weave rugs carpets: Knotted pile rugs are just one small part of a vast universe of textile techniques suitable for heavy use. If you can imagine it, some weaver has tried it out. Pieces can be roughly divided into those reversible from the start and those never, or at least not initially, reversible. Thus, kilims are considered reversible, while everything else is not. Kilims are tapestry woven rugs with both sides the same, in either slit technique where colors change, or with various methods of avoiding slits. Slit tapestry weave goes back to ancient times and Coptic Egyptian weavers used it for ornaments on garments and larger wall hangings. Slits can be avoided by dovetailing of colors (warp sharing) or by interlocking the wefts. The Navajo weavers of the Southwest practice the first while the Fine shawl weavers of Kashmir and Kerman employed the second. Interlocking produces a one-faced fabric, with smooth and rough, ridged faces. The typical Turkish, Caucasian, or Persian rustic Kilim shows slits, but never long ones. Aubusson French carpets are also slit tapestries and the long color transitions are sewn up as part of the regular maintenance. Some kilims are very Fine. The best antique urban Sehna (Senna) kilims on wool, cotton or silk warps approximate the comparable rugs in refinement and are the most desirable of all Persian kilims. Although the various flatweave techniques are usually expressed in geometric, simple, often repeating, patterns, Sehna kilims demonstrate that even the most intricate designs can be effectively rendered in flat-stich. The term ‘Kilim’ has been extended to cover any pileless, weft-faced heavy textile. Thus, the sectioned and joined northeastern Persian horizontally striped wool rugs are called ‘kilims’. So are the plain-weave end finishes of pile rugs. All these are weft-faced, weft patterned flatweaves. These sectioned pieces are woven not on a frame loom, but one steadied by the weaver at one end and with the warps fastened down at the other. Only relatively recent have these tribal pieces become available. They are used as floorcoverings, hangings, room dividers, furniture covers. They are mostly bitonal in shades of natural dark brown and beige. Some more recent pieces show weaver innovations with ikat and moire effects. Work proceeds quickly and a skilled weaver can complete a thirty foot strip in almost no time. Wefts, the elements added as weaving progresses, play an essential part in what is a flatweave. The best-known example of an extra-weft, wrapping technique is on Caucasian and tribal Persian Soumaks, where a pattern weft wraps around the fixed warp, changing as weaving progresses. Soumaks can be large carpets, Kuba in the Caucasus, small bag faces (Caucasian and Persian Shah Savan saddle bags), or cover scatter rugs (Persian Afshars). The Soumak technique is fast, and a weaver can work much more quickly than tying knots. The left-over wefts are cut off on the back, so the front and back are initially different. As a Soumak on the floor gets used, these weft yarns wear away and the two sides converge although the exact texture remains distinct. There are other ways of pattern by weft. Often on smaller tribal pieces, the pattern weft(s) is (are) part of the weft structure, moving in an out, and holding the whole thing together. These wefts can be complementary or added (supplementary), continuous across the flatweave or cut off as they travel unneeded across the verso. Supplementary weft flatweaves are often very compact and substantial. The nomadic Turkmen and Balouch tribes employ both supplementary and complementary weft techniques on their pieces. Supplementary wefts are often raised on the recto (front) while complementary wefts are flat to the surface. Tribal Kurds employ this extra-wefting technique. The Balouch of Pakistan use complementary wefts almost exclusively on their small woven paraphernalia like salt bags. Flatweave techniques may be combined on a single piece. Afshar rugs employ plain-weave end strips, preceded by Soumak bands, with pile sections between. The large Bakhtiari saddlebags feature Soumak work, pile “islands” an areas of plain-weave. Qashqai rugs and kilims frequently displays checkerboard end strips in continuous, complementary wefting. Another distinct flatweave type is the jajim (jijim, cecim) in which a pattern is added with colored wefts as the weaving of the plain-weave ground progresses. Here the wefts are discontinuous and the pattern stands proud from the voided ground. Often made in two pieces on narrow looms and edge-sewn together, these may have geometric patterns. The term ‘jajim’ also refers to the assembled warp-faced strip and stripe covers from the Shah Savan of northwest Persia, the pattern is defined by warps alone, usually in plain stripes, but sometimes in designs of ladders, snakes, human figures and various animals. Here the color changing warps are continuous. Most are wool, a few are silk. Better to call these something else. Indian ‘Dhurries’ are all cotton kilims and ‘shatrangis’ employ wool wefts on cotton warps. Dhurries are slitless. The cotton texture is more appropriate to the humid and warm climate of the Indian subcontinent. Modern Dhurries...

West Anatolia is one of the largest weaving regions in Turkey. Since the 15th century, Turkish rugs have always been on top of the list for having fine oriental rugs. Oushak rugs su...

74255 Late 19th Century Antique Turkish Hunting Scene Oushak Rug, 14'06 x 17'00. An Ode to the Chase: Where Kings Ride and Elephants Walk Among Shadows. Woven beneath the golden haze...

This antique Anatolian Kilim rug from the early 1900s showcases a rare and beautifully saturated turquoise-blue field richly decorated with tribal floral and geometric motifs in red,...

This elegant handwoven wool area rug was constructed in the late 20th century around 1980 in Turkey. The design features cream, brown, blue and rust colours that make up the fantasti...

Room size Turkish Kilim, ivory and specs in brown, gray and small re-weave on one end in a bone color. Made from recycled cotton and goat hair material giving it an old world, vintag...

A fantastic, oversize antique Oushak carpet. The real deal, the genuine article, the kind that built the legend of Oushak. The best examples, like this one, display a lighthearted, ...

A modern Turkish flat-weave Kilim large room size carpet handmade during the 21st century inspired by vintage Swedish / Scandinavian Kilims from the mid-20th century period. Measu...

Oushak carpets are named after the large town in western Anatolia (Turkey) where they were woven. This town has been a major weaving center for rug production since the reign of the Ottoman Empire (July, 1299 – October, 1923) up to the current day. This Empire is widely considered to have been the most powerful in the world under the rule of Suleiman the Magnificent...