SECTION OF THE HOLY CARPET OF THE MOSQUE AT ARDEBIL,
Size: 34 ft. 6 in. by 17 ft. 6 in.

FORMERLY IN THE POSSESSION OF VINCENT ROBINSON & CO., Ltd.,
34 Wigmore Street, London, W.,

And Sold by them in 1892 to
THE ROYAL VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, SOUTH KENSINGTON, LONDON.

ORIENTAL RUGS

ANTIQUE AND MODERN

BY

WALTER A. HAWLEY

WITH ELEVEN FULL-PAGE PLATES IN COLOUR
EIGHTY HALF-TONE ENGRAVINGS
AND FOUR MAPS

NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1927

Copyright, 1913
By John Lane Company

Printed in U. S. A.

PREFACE

INCE the appearance, in 1900, of the excellent work of Mr. John Kimberly Mumford on Oriental Rugs, the public interest in these fabrics has so largely increased that the author feels warranted in offering this monograph, which aims to treat the subject in a way that will not only appeal to the general reader but be of value to the student.

In the chapter entitled “Rug Weaving Before the XVIII Century” is a brief review of some of the notable achievements in this branch of art; and in order that the public may as far as possible have access to the masterpieces described, the carpets on exhibition in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York have been given unusual prominence. The chapters on “How to Distinguish Rugs” and on “Purchasing Rugs” should prove serviceable to those who are collecting or are buying for use; and the chapter on “Weaving” contains many details which have not previously received from connoisseurs the consideration they deserve.

The descriptions of all but the least important classes of rugs in the Persian, Asia Minor, Caucasian, and Central Asiatic groups include not only a general statement of their most striking features, but also a technical analysis that is termed “Type Characteristics.” It should be understood, however, that these characteristics are not invariable, but are remarkably constant. They may interest chiefly those who aim to acquire expert information, yet they will doubtlessly prove valuable to every owner of a rug as a means for its identification.

It would be difficult to acknowledge all the assistance received by the author since he began the study of rugs; for sometimes a mere suggestion has started a line of investigation resulting in interesting discoveries. He has freely consulted well-known authorities, who are quoted in the body of the work; and has received valuable suggestions and assistance from Messrs. T. S. Hawley, of Santa Barbara, Cal., George Harootunian and Frank Loftus, of Los Angeles, Cal.; George Stevenson, of New York; G. Graf, of the Persische Teppiche Gesellschaft, of Tabriz; and P. de Andrea & Co., of Constantinople. He gratefully acknowledges the permission of Messrs. C. F. Williams, of Norristown, Penn., and James F. Ballard, of St. Louis, Mo., to study their valuable collections; and the permission of Dr. Wilhelm R. Valentiner, Curator of Decorative Arts in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, to examine the carpets of the museum and to take photographs of them. He also wishes particularly to mention the kindness of the following collectors and firms who have allowed their rugs to be used for illustrations: Miss Emily Davis, of Buffalo, N. Y.; the Misses Palache, and Messrs. Nathan Bentz and T. S. Hawley, of Santa Barbara, Cal.; Mr. R. Y. Struble, of Fredericktown, Ohio; Mr. E. L. Pierce, of Syracuse, N.Y.; Mr. H. C. Merritt, of Pasadena, Cal.; Mr. J. F. Ballard, of St. Louis, Mo.; Mr. C. F. Williams, of Norristown, Penn.; Major L. B. Lawton, U.S.A., of Seneca Falls, N.Y.; Messrs. Mihran & Co., of Los Angeles, Cal.; Messrs. B. Altman & Co., Benguiat & Keresey, Wm. Baumgarten & Co., Jones & Brindisi, Jos. Wild & Co., W. & J. Sloane, and the Tiffany Studios, of New York City. He is also indebted to Vincent Robinson & Co., Ltd., of London, for the use of the colour plate of the Royal Garden Carpet, now owned by them, and to the Royal Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, London, for permission to obtain a colour plate of the Holy Carpet of the Mosque of Ardebil.

Walter A. Hawley.

New York, June, 1913.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

Coloured Plates

Halftone Engravings

Black and White Engravings

Charts

ORIENTAL RUGS

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

T is not altogether surprising that in a most materialistic age many of a race distinguished more for its utilitarian than artistic accomplishments should fail to see in Oriental carpets high artistic expression; yet during the last twenty years choice specimens have been sold for sums which not only are very large, but show a tendency to increase with each succeeding year. In 1893 a woollen rug, known as the Ardebil carpet and regarded, on account of its beautiful designs and exquisite colours, as one of the finest products of Oriental art, was purchased for the South Kensington Museum. Since it had a length of thirty-four and a half feet with a breadth of seventeen and a half, the price of £2500, which was the sum paid, was at the rate of twenty dollars per square foot. At an auction sale in New York in 1910,1 a woollen rug five and a half feet long by three and three quarters wide was sold for the sum of $10,200, or at the rate of four hundred and ninety-one dollars per square foot; and a silk rug seven feet and two inches long by six feet and four inches wide was sold for the sum of $35,500, or at the rate of nine hundred and thirty dollars per square foot. As it was the general opinion of connoisseurs that the prices paid for these two rugs were low, and as it is well known that these rugs are not more valuable than some others of equal size, it is not unreasonable to assume that many of the best judges of Oriental rugs would declare that at the present time the sum of five hundred dollars per square foot is a fair price for some antique woollen rugs, and the sum of one thousand dollars per square foot a fair price for some antique silk rugs.

If these judges were asked on what they based their opinion of the value of these old pieces, which are less serviceable for wear than new rugs that can be bought of an American factory at twenty cents per square foot, they might with reason reply that they are works of art, woven in those days when Michelangelo, Titian, Rubens, and Rembrandt were busy in their studios; that they are as scarce as the paintings of these masters; and that they might justly be compared with them in beauty and artistic execution. Though granting that the technique of weaving makes it impossible to represent a design as perfectly as can be done with a brush, they would claim that the drawing of dainty vines, scrolls, and arabesques was often represented by lines that in abstract beauty of form are unsurpassed, and that no artist had ever produced from his palette colours which equalled in brilliant sheen and marvellously changing hue those of the woven masterpieces.

Whoever is inclined to disagree with these judges and with those art critics of Europe and America who assert that in an aesthetic sense the people of the Orient are cultured to a standard beyond the comprehension of the Western world, should remember that the taste for any kind of art is based on convention and is largely a matter of cultivation. The Occidental, who for generations has cultivated the taste for paintings and statuary, looks to the painter and sculptor for the highest expression of artistic genius; but the Oriental takes greater delight in his marvellous creations of porcelain or woven fabrics. There is, too, a marked difference in treatment. The Occidental demands that in art “everything should be stated with the utmost fullness of a tedious realism before he can grasp its meaning”2 and fails to recognise the more subtle beauty of various forms of Oriental art. The Oriental, on the other hand, is far less realistic and is better satisfied if his subject suggests abstract qualities that depend for their fullest appreciation on those quickening experiences that at different times have touched the soul of the observer. Moreover, as Buddhism, which prevails in many of the countries of Asia, teaches that a universal spirit is manifested in each form of nature, determining its character, and a similar idea pervades other religions of the East, the highest aim of Asiatic art is to express that inner spirit. It is largely this difference in artistic cultivation that accounts for the difference in taste. Whoever then would fully appreciate these rugs must view them not only with an eye trained to see the beautiful harmonies of colour and design, but with the artistic temperament of the Oriental.

By study and cultivation the European as well as the American is growing to value more highly the products of Oriental art. When the old sea captains carried on trade with Japan, they imported into Europe large quantities of Imari ware, which the Japanese purposely decorated with crude and vulgar colours to meet the less refined taste of the Europeans, who regarded many of them as fine specimens of ceramic art and studiously copied them in their factories. But so great has been the change in artistic taste since then that now they are valued principally as objects of curiosity. Likewise, many beautiful Japanese Makimonos, in which a few strong lines gave but a hint of the essential thought, formerly passed before the eyes of Europeans as the paintings of semi-barbarians. But now we begin to see, as did Whistler, that they are often the products of great genius and that they express thought and feeling with marvellous power. There has been a similar growth in the appreciation of Oriental rugs. Even within the last generation this growth has been apparent, so that the few who wisely bought those old worn pieces which thirty years ago hung at doors of little shops where dark-faced foreigners invited acquaintance, are now the envy of the many who, too late, have learned that to-day they can scarcely be bought at any price.

The more we study the several fields of art in the Orient, the better we realise the wonderful creative genius of its people and learn to value the products of any one field. Japan has awakened the admiration of the highest art critics for its bronzes, some of which exceed in size any other castings in the world, and for its netsukés, which are the smallest of carvings. Its blades of steel are superior to those of Damascus and Toledo; and its lacquer, which is the most wonderful of its artistic products, displays genius of a very high order. To China, a country that we often regard as barbarous, we owe the invention of silks, the printing press, and gunpowder; yet it is in porcelain, that was manufactured even in those days when Caesar was marching with his legions against the barbarous races of Central and Northern Europe, that China has surpassed the world and set a standard that probably will never again be reached. In the land where glide the Indus and the Ganges stand temples, erected by the descendants of the house of Tamerlane, before which the beholder, even if familiar with the wonders of St. Peter’s, is lost in admiration of the intricate delicacy of detail, the majesty of proportions, and the gorgeous splendour of colour with which some of the spirit of the East is expressed in material form. When we realise that in these different lines of artistic effort the genius of Asia has rivalled and surpassed that of Europe and America, we become the better prepared to believe that choice specimens of woven fabrics, in weaving which every class of every country of Asia has been engaged from time immemorial, are to be regarded as works of the highest art.

However pleasing the design or elaborate the detail, it is principally in the colouring that these rugs claim our interest and admiration. The colours which are derived from vegetable or animal dyes grow more mellow and beautiful with passing years, and applied to wools of finest texture acquire a lustre and softness which in the choicest specimens are like the radiant throat of a humming bird, or tints at the close of an autumn day. The different shades have different moods, expressing peace, joy, pensiveness, sorrow, the deep meaning of which the Oriental mind with its subtle and serious imagination has grasped as has none other. Moreover, in all truly fine pieces there is perfect harmony of tone. It is in this richness, suggestiveness, and harmony that the greatest artistic value lies.

That all do not appreciate these qualities is not because they do not exist; for the keen perception of colour, like the keen perception of music, is a faculty granted to one person but denied to another. Even to those who take delight in colour there are different degrees of appreciation. “The fact is,” said John Ruskin, “we none of us enough appreciate the nobleness and sacredness of colour.” But as the ear can be cultivated to a higher taste for music, so can the eye be cultivated to a higher taste for colour; and to fully appreciate the beauties of Oriental rugs it is necessary to develop this faculty to its fullest extent.

And yet it is not alone as works of art that Oriental rugs interest us. They suggest something of the life and religious thought of the people who made them. Some seem redolent with the fragrance of flowers, others reflect the spirit of desert wastes and wind-swept steppes. So, too, in the colours and designs of some appear the symbols of that mysticism with which the minds of the followers of Zoroaster in their effort to commune with the unseen forces of the universe were imbued; and though the original meaning of many of these symbols has been forgotten, the study of others leads to a better understanding of the life-thought of the weavers.

Realising, then, that Asia has been the cradle from which has come the highest expression of many forms of artistic achievement, and that the Western mind is now assigning to its woven fabrics their proper place in the galleries of art, we may begin the study of Oriental rugs with the assurance that the further it is pursued the greater will be the appreciation and delight. It will take us among strange and interesting people, and over fields that were historic grounds before the walls of Rome were built. It will lead beyond the dome of St. Sophia to the land of the Arabian tales, where the splendour of former days is reflected in tomb and mosque, and where, perhaps, when the Western world grows old, there will rise again from crumbling ruins another nation that will revive the poetic and artistic genius of the East with all the majesty and creative power of the past.

CHAPTER II

PHYSICAL FEATURES AND HISTORY OF THE RUG-PRODUCING LANDS

HE artistic character of Oriental rugs, like every other artistic impulse, is subject to the influence of physical environment. This influence is not alone that to which an individual weaver has been subjected, but is the transmitted effect of the accumulated experiences of many generations. It appears in the colours which simulate tones displayed by varying phases of nature, and also in the designs or symbols which, derived from older types by a long process of evolution, partially reflect feelings engendered in a people of highly imaginative and poetic temperament by long contact with elemental forces. Moreover, the quality of material used depends almost exclusively on the climate and physical conditions of countries where it is produced. Accordingly, the artistic and essential characteristics of rugs are better understood by a knowledge of the salient physical features of the countries where they are woven.3

The principal Oriental countries that continue to produce rugs are China, India, Afghanistan, Beluchistan, Persia, Turkestan, Caucasia, and Asia Minor. As all of them are contiguous, they may be regarded as a geographic unit; and though there is much diversity of detail, there is also much in common. From near the western boundary of Asia Minor a vast plateau stretches eastward into Central Asia, increasing in altitude towards the east.

Its mean elevation in Asia Minor is from two thousand to three thousand feet, and as it extends beyond the Zagros Mountains and crosses the northern half of Persia, it rises from four thousand to five thousand feet. Continuing eastward through Southern Turkestan and Afghanistan it increases in altitude until it has risen to nearly twelve thousand feet in the lofty table-lands of Central Asia, where it begins to descend as it extends farther into the desert of Gobi. From the western part of this plateau a spur extends northward between the Black and Caspian seas, to form the high table-land of Caucasia, which has a mean elevation of about seven thousand feet.

The general topographic features of this plateau include great stretches of comparatively level land, broad tracts from which there is no drainage to the sea, and sandy desert wastes. On almost every side it is bounded by mountain chains and is intersected by transverse ridges that lift still higher peaks where rests the perpetual snow. Throughout the deserts and large parts of the table-lands the rainfall is slight, so that there are but few important river courses.

The cultivated portions of this vast area are relatively small, and consist largely of strips of land in fertile valleys, through which flow perennial streams. From time immemorial these streams have been used for irrigation, and the inhabitants of the districts have prospered by abundant harvests. In one or another of these valleys have been built the principal cities, within the walls of which were imposing temples that stimulated religious fervour, schools of learning to quicken the intellect, and gardens where perfumed flowers and the songs of birds delighted the aesthetic senses. In these cities science, philosophy, religion, and art received their highest development. In them lived the most skilled artisans and artists of the Orient; and the products of the loom were of the finest quality.

Beyond these valleys are great stretches of uncultivated tracts consisting of plains, hills, and mountains. Some of these tracts are naturally fertile and could be made productive, but at present are used only for pasturage, and over them numberless tribes of fierce nomads drive their flocks of sheep. On the other hand, where the land has no drainage to the sea, so that the streams and rivers that flow into it empty into small lakes or are finally absorbed, the soil becomes impregnated with alkali deposited from the waters, and the grass is scanty. There are also sandy wastes of great extent where scarcely any animal life can exist. Moreover in many parts of the country the rain falls only during a few months of the year, and more abundantly in the higher altitudes, so that the nomads are constantly searching for fresh pasturage, and moving from the lowlands, where the grass dies after the rainy season, to the higher altitudes, from which they return again at the approach of winter. So numerous are the flocks that in the struggle for pasture the weaker tribes are driven to the poorer land.

The pastoral life, the necessity of moving from place to place, the strife resulting from the difference in quality of pasture, have affected the temperament and character of the people. The boundless stretches of land, the clear atmosphere, the burning desert sands, the delicate mirage, and the starry heavens, have made men hospitable, thoughtful, devotional; constant wanderings have made them independent; the struggle for pasturage has made them lawless and cruel. These qualities are reflected to some extent in their woven fabrics, which lack the high artistic finish of those woven in cities. A large proportion of them are prayer rugs and contain symbols of the sun and fire worship. The designs are barbaric, and many are doubtless the same as those used hundreds of years ago. The colours of the old pieces, woven on upland plains or in mountain fastnesses, blend less harmoniously than those woven by more cultured weavers; but they frequently possess rich, pure tones, which are no longer seen in the modern rugs. As even a partial expression of the thoughts and feelings of a people, there are no rugs from the Orient more worthy of study than the rare old pieces woven by nomadic tribes.

Not only physical environment but the conquests of foreign enemies, as well as political struggles at home, have had an important influence on all art. It will be of interest, therefore, to briefly review the histories of Central and Southwestern Asia, where rugs have been made for over three thousand years, in order to understand the different racial influences which have affected their artistic development.