Classification of Persian Rugs
Persian rugs are classified by the woven region. A major rug region may also have subcategories. Every city, village or tribe has their own unique design that they incorporate into their rugs. A certain design however may be woven by many cities, but they are different in detail, such as the famous Fish (Herati) design or Botteh design.
Two main types of Persian rugs
- Tribal rugs
- City rugs.
Tribal rugs are those woven by nomads and people of small rural villages. The materials such as the wool and dyes are often excellent and sometimes a tribal rug might turn out surprisingly fine. The dyes used in tribal rugs are still mainly natural herbal dyes.
Quality and Design and next two attributes that are so much important.
The Quality of Persian rugs is their most important attribute. Quality refers mainly to
- the knotting of the rug
- quality of the wool and/or the silk
- the accuracy of the rug
It is difficult to determine the relative importance of different elements.
For example, a carpet with a low density of knots can be more valuable than another carpet with the same age and higher density of knots but with a different origin.
There are many different designs that you may find in the Persian rugs industry, ranging from simple geometric designs to floral medallion designs, open field designs, all over patterns or pictorial designs.
Tribal rugs tend to have geometric designs with not too much details, and their colours are few and primarily bright. City rugs and finer pieces usually have a more detailed design with more details and much more colour. For example, there might be a tribal rug that has only three or four colours and there might be a fine Qum silk rug that has over eighty colours.
Examples of the Tribal rugs:
Examples of the City Rugs: