Publications by Raoul Tschebull
Heriz Carpets - A Historical Perspective
This article is reproduced, with some additional editing by the author and not all the original color plates, from Hali 90, January 1997. Hali is a highly recommended specialist magazine about carpets, textiles and Islamic art, published by Hali Publications Ltd., London, UK, which can be reached at www.hali.com
Heriz carpets are the staple of the decorative furnishing market and remain probably the most popular of all northwest Persian carpets. Embodying the spirit of the Persian 'Revival Period' of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, they were produced for the rapidly growing overseas market, and especially for the USA. The term Heriz is generally used to refer to carpets made by the villagers of rural East Azarbayjan, a West Virginia-sized province in Northwest Iran on the Caucasian frontier, but in its broadest sense, includes the closely related weavings of nearby urban workshops. The author recently travelled widely in East Azarbayjan, in an effort to answer some longstanding questions about the prolific weaving cultures of the area.
Heriz carpets are the jeeps of the rug world - cheap to
make, durable and easy to repair. They are disdained by many
connoisseurs perhaps because they are so numerous, amounting to
cliches in the world of interior design. But the vibrant
natural-dyed northwest Persian rugs and carpets sold under the
generic description 'Heriz' were woven at the same time as many
commercial Caucasian rugs, which are widely considered to be
highly collectable. Furthermore, they were often made from better
wool and dyed with higher quality dyes. Large scale commercial rug
weaving in the Transcaucasus and the Heriz region came about for
exactly the same purpose: to meet the burgeoning demand for
furnishing carpets in the rapidly industrializing Western nations,
particularly the United States. The close parallel between the two
types illustrates how artificial the perceived difference between
'collectable' and 'decorative' rugs and carpets can be. The most
common carpet designs in Iran a hundred or more years ago were
boteh and small-scale herati patterns in overall repeats, neither
of which are at all common in the Heriz repertoire.
In East Azarbayjan (Azarba)jan-e-Sharqi), it was
only around the turn of the present century that the
systematic production of large geometric design carpets
in formats adapted for the Western market began. Most of
this carpet weaving took place in a rough triangle
immediately southwest of the Sabalan mountain massif,
between Bostanabad, Ahar and Sarab, about a hundred
kilometers east of Tabriz (See image 1, the map of
Northwest Iran).
This is a rich agricultural area of some fifty villages,
including Sarab, Ahar, Mehreban, Bakhshaish and Heriz (in
descending order of size). The area, at an elevation of about
1,500 meters, suffers constant wind off the mountains and very
cold, snowy winters. Sabalan and another large mountain massif
near Tabriz, Sahand, are volcanic, and the ash, which makes the
soil here so fertile, blows everywhere. Herds of fat-tailed sheep
in a variety of colours - brindle, beige, brown, black and
off-white - graze uncultivated upland areas and also lowland
fields that have already been harvested. Cattle are common, and
there is a local dairy industry. Donkeys and buffalo are used for
transport and draft. Today, on asphalt roads, the trip from Tabriz
takes about two hours. A century ago, accessible only on dirt
tracks, these villages were quite remote. The local population is
Azeri, speaking Turki, rarely Farsi; younger people tend to be
more ready to speak Farsi.
Early on, merchant contact must have come almost exclusively from Tabriz. At first, the carpets produced in this region were known in the market as Yoregan and Gorevan, but they eventually became familiar under the name of Heriz, one of the larger weaving towns in the area. Both anecdotal and written accounts suggest that these carpets were commissioned by Tabriz merchants who supplied the villagers with crude cartoons (sometimes samplers) for low-priced floor coverings that competed with the more finely knotted and more expensive Saruk carpets, especially in the US market.
It is likely that when commercial carpet weaving began in the area, the Tabriz merchants supplied both looms and pre-dyed wool, and commissioned master-weavers to oversee production. Weavers in such a system would have worked on a contractual basis, being paid only for their labor. However, a network of independent weavers surely came into being, who obtained much of their dyed wool requirements locally and sold their carpets in the bazaar or directly to the Tabriz entrepreneurs. It is impossible to estimate the mix between contract and independent weavers seventy to a hundred years ago, and even now both methods of compensation exist side by side. Today, though carpet weaving still takes place in towns and villages throughout Azarbayjan, the associated skills of carding, spinning and plying wool are generally no longer practiced.
The earliest Heriz export carpets were apparently modeled on a fairly common late 19th century Saruk central medallion design. The Saruk's typically dark blue medallion and pendants, the contrasting spandrels, the red-ground main border, and even the tree forms seen in the field, were carefully reproduced in early Heriz carpets. The one major variation was the widespread use of the 'turtle' main border pattern, almost certainly derived from the ubiquitous classical cloudband and palmette form.
These early export carpets were commonly woven in sizes from approximately 3 x 4m (9' x 12') to 4 x 6m (12' x 20') in order to fit Western homes, rather than in the typically long narrow Middle Eastern format (length twice width). Judging from my observations in East Azarbayjan, I believe that large carpets were woven on upright wooden roller looms in communal rooms in homes. Such carpets are often irregular in shape and show many different versions of the Saruk medallion design and, to a much lesser extent, a variety of all over geometricized floral patterns, somewhat clumsily rendered. The peculiarities of these first-generation Herizes suggest that their weavers were unfamiliar with the size and style of carpet, they were being asked to produce.
But these weavers and their supporting dyers had a
marvellous color sense which did not arise overnight. It appears
that in the early 19th century Heriz area weavers were producing
at least one carpet style related to the later export pieces.
These carpets, which are quite rare, were woven in a traditional
long format, but with a structure which is almost identical to
that of export carpets woven before about 1920 (excepting that
they have wool rather than cotton warps). A large ivory-ground carpet, 5.75m (18'10") long
and 3.25m (10'9") wide, published by F.R. Martin (A
History of Oriental Carpets before 1800, 1908, pl. 23)
and latterly with Voltech Blau in New York, bears a crude
date inscription of 1222 AH (1807 AD). A similar
yellow-ground carpet was sold at Lefevre, London, in 1979
and subsequently published by Eberhart Herrmann
(Asiatische Teppich- und Textilkunst 4, 1993, pl. 64),
(See image 2). Both these old examples show an allover
repeat of small geometric medallions linked by serrated
leaves,
surrounded by a dark blue-ground main border which contains
palmette-like forms. The field pattern is ubiquitous in Turkish,
Persian, and Caucasian folkart pile weaving, but is very rare in
later Heriz export carpets.
Another Heriz area design type that is generally presumed to be relatively early is based on a central medallion. It is usually described as being from the village of Bakhshaish, though there is no evidence that this is so. As with the long format Herizes, these carpets (See accompanying images 3 and 4), with their archaic-looking, possibly zoomorphic design, may have developed in the 19th century or earlier. There is a fairly large number of carpets of this type, and they are quite variable in drawing, size, and structure, but most have a camel, light blue, rose and yellow color combination.
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Like other types of export-oriented carpets, Herizes, early or late, seldom have personalized inscriptions, or even the inwoven dates that one sees more often in village and nomad rugs. One Bakhshaish carpet, however, is unusual insofar as it has a complex inscription cartouche and a possible date of production. (See image 3) The inscription text has been puzzled over by several experts, and an exact translation, especially of the place where the carpet was woven, is problematic, as is almost always the case with inscriptions on coarse rugs woven in rural areas where the use of diacritical marks was imprecise. The most recent (and painstakingly thought out) translation is based on the assumption that the beginning of the inscription is incomplete, and that it should read: "Woven in the foremost workshop at Yaqutiya [?]. Akhvundfi]Haji Year 125". Akhvund Haji (an honorific title) may be the master-weaver, designer, or both; Yaqutiya does not appear on any map, and the apparent date, 1250 AH (1834 AD), is possible but improbable.
One may infer from this inscription that the carpet was woven in some kind of controlled environment, with a master craftsman taking credit for the work. The implication is that it was not woven in an unsupervised or lightly supervised manner by a group of women in a remote village - the way many Heriz carpets were produced. By extension we may suppose that some other Heriz-type carpets may also be workshop products.
The first generation of Heriz export carpets is characterized by generous scale, and there are often areas of unadorned field. (See image 5) Succeeding generations usually have stiffer designs, and the spaces between design elements tend to fill up with small geometric forms. Given the lack of inwoven dates, acquisition information is the only sure way to determine how old these carpets are.
Most first generation Heriz carpets have passed through so many hands that all relevant data has been lost, but in one case (See image 6), I learned of such a carpet given as a wedding gift in 1902. The groom was a medical doctor working in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. One must assume the carpet was new at the time - an old room sized carpet is an unlikely Midwestern wedding gift.
Early Heriz export carpets, which are structurally like their long-format predecessors, usually have up to 6-ply heavy cotton warps and wefts, symmetric knots, and flat selvedges made up of two pairs of warps wrapped figure-eight fashion with natural dark brown wool or dyed wool taken from the skeins used for the knotted pile. Both single and double-wefted carpets were woven in the Heriz area, and wefts are usually dyed light blue, as were those in export carpets from other regions of early 20th century Iran.
The materials, structure, and palette are not unlike those used for 19th century long-format pile rugs woven in villages of the same area for local use or for sale on the internal market (See image 7), except that many of those have woolen warps and wefts. (Heriz export carpets were not produced in a vacuum, and it is rewarding to understand the matrix of nomad and for-the-internal-market village weaving cultures into which export carpet production fits.)
Early Herizes are usually relatively finely knotted with a density of as much as 1,400 knots/dM2 (90/in2). The knots are quite loosely packed and the pile is clipped fairly short. This structure, with its loose weave and small knots, does not wear well. As a result, after around 1920 it gave way to a much thicker, coarser, long-piled fabric in the succeeding generation, which is much more robust and required less time to weave.
Some of these early carpets are brightly coloured and show a broad range of dyes, but many tend to have a limited palette, with a dominant brick-red tone, ivory, a small range of blues and one green, faded almost to blue. Many had their colors reduced by a heavier lime or ash wash than later brighter carpets received, but it is probable that the villages which produced first generation Heriz carpets favoured orange red to medium red in any case. There are several clusters of these early export carpets which are distinctive enough in structure and/or colour to be placed in groups. These clusters may represent the dominant weaving villages of first generation Herizes.
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Image #5
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While most of these early export Herizes have very diverse central medallions, even in the first generation there was an effort to introduce a more standardized design. This pattern, which probably originated in a Tabriz design atelier (but may have an antecedent in silk textiles), has a blocky eight-lobed medallion in dark blue, with contrasting color provided by layered elements. In early examples, the sophisticated layering of the medallion design is easy to see, but it disappears in later carpets. The layered medallion is commonly centered on a red field which runs to the edge of the inner guard. In first generation carpets, the red field often floats free of the borders (See image 8).
Pendants in light or dark blue, yellow, green and pink, with deeply indented edges, are attached to the main medallion. On countless examples the field is filled with very similar stylized forms, which are, except for the tree forms protruding from the medallion, almost impossible to identify. The, spandrels are commonly ivory, yellow or light blue, and contain a quarter of a secondary Heriz medallion, usually in a red one shade lighter than the main ground. The field is surrounded by a dark blue main border of cloudband (or 'turtle') forms, harking back in type and ground color to the border used in the long format 19th century Heriz carpets described above. Such borders demonstrate the ease with which Heriz weavers interpreted a relatively simple motif in countless different ways.
Early Herizes are called 'Serapis' in the trade, a term which connotes high quality. The name is surely derived from the town of Sarab on the south side of the Sabalan massif. Large export carpets were woven in or near Sarab, although apparently fewer than in the villages further north around Heriz. These carpets often have distinctive light colored main borders and soft colors throughout; they are clearly part of a strong local pileweaving tradition that dates to at least the beginning of the 19th century. Sarab production for local use was mostly in runner format, often with a camel-dyed or natural beige wool field color, and is often confused with similar Hamadan rugs.
Another high quality old type from the Heriz area is the 'Bakhshaish'. This medium-sized village may deserve its reputation, if only because it has been acknowledged as a center of excellence for so long. But the range of weavings described as Bakhshaish is too broad to have come from one village. Many so-called Bakhshaish carpets are predominantly camel-colored, and I believe that a large proportion of these weavings also come from Sarab, which is larger, has more weavers, and has about the same access to herds of camel-colored sheep. Other carpets ascribed to Bakhshaish are so flashy and sophisticated that it is hard to imagine that they were woven in such an isolated village. I suspect that much early Bakhshaish export weaving is camel colored, almost always on a cotton foundation, with shorter pile than Sarabs, and knots not packed so tightly. Since there are more Bakhshaish-style export carpets with woolen warps - an indication of earlier production - it is possible that large-format weaving was started there before elsewhere in rural East Azarbayjan (See images 3 and 4).
As a distinct style, Heriz export carpet weaving was introduced over a relatively short period of time but nevertheless draws on a long tradition of Islamic design and cannot easily be traced to any one source. The medallion style clearly has Safavid origins. The carpets themselves are conservative, and reflect the culture from which they come. It is not surprising, therefore, that the vast majority of Heriz carpets follow some interpretation of the central medallion convention, with a blue medallion set on a red field.
There were nevertheless design exceptions, and early examples are heavily represented among the pieces oriental carpet dealers feature in their advertisements. Among these exceptions are very finely woven carpets with delicate arabesques (See image 9) and repeat tree patterns. Others have unusual central medallion forms, and still others have what appear to be allover repeat designs derived from cotton textiles. Many of these carpets have blue fields. Main borders are generally conservative. Such carpets were probably all special orders, and I think that many were woven in workshops in Tabriz. By way of confirmation, I have seen "Heriz"-style carpets on the loom in contemporary Tabriz workshops, and can well understand they were woven in these facilities in former times; in addition, some old "Heriz" carpets actually have Tabriz workshop inscriptions in their borders.
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Two interesting groups of carpets were apparently woven in the Heriz area in the period immediately after World War 1, and extending at least through the mid 1920s. The first is a modified or revival 'Serapi' style but with large knots packed down tightly, and wefts often pulled tight to produce a heavy warp depression. The pile is shorter than in most Heriz carpets from this period. The design is relatively open, and both field and the ground of the main border are red. Spandrels are ivory. This revival style was obviously popular, judging from extant carpets, which are much more numerous than first generation Herizes. Some of these carpets were heavily washed.
The second group looks as if it was woven under supervision, perhaps in workshops in a larger town. These carpets were usually made from the best quality wool, with brilliantly dyed colors, a fine weave, and curvilinear designs. They sometimes have border corner solutions, an unusual feature on Heriz weaving.
The 1920s were really the high point of Heriz weaving. Western demand was strong due to the booming US and European economies, and synthetic dyes were not yet making inroads into rural northwest Iran - even though they were common in carpets made in Tabriz itself. Standard 3 x 4m (9' x 12') medallion carpets could be turned out in a matter of weeks with six to eight women weaving steadily, especially when a single weft structure was used. (Most single-wefted carpets are from Qarajeh and surrounding villages; most so-called "Heriz" carpets are double-wefted.)
It is apparent from surviving carpets that different grades were woven. Weavers were almost certainly paid on the basis of knot density. Very coarse carpets were called Gorevans, although coarsely woven carpets were probably produced all over the Heriz area. Then as now, a carpet's beauty had less to do with density of weave than with quality of wool and color harmony. It is probable that much of the wool used was obtained from the Shahsavan and other nomads who migrated to the Sabalan massif and Qaradagh in the summer. This wool is generally coarse and high gloss, and, when well sorted, is one of the most durable and beautiful carpet wools in Iran.
Almost every Heriz carpet has at least three madder-based reds, which range from pale pink, through shades of cinnamon and orange, to dark purple. However, when red is used as a field color, it is almost always a mid-range tone, often the darkest shade in the carpet. In about ten percent of Heriz carpets, the red used as a field color was a rose tone. The weavers' general color and design sense played a large role in how a carpet looked, but the success of a Heriz often derives solely from the harmonious use of these three reds. Attention to details such as guard borders, made a difference. The best Herizes often have non-repetitive color sequences in repeat designs.
Aside from the multiple red tones, Herizes commonly have two or three shades of blue derived from indigo, a variable yellow tone, probably made from isparuk (Yellow Larkspur), a green produced by overdyeing blue with yellow, and a chartreuse probably made using a similar overdyeing process. The yellow is somewhat light sensitive, allowing strong, even strident yellows and greens to fade to a more pleasant straw and blue-green.
Seeing an old Heriz which has not been exposed to sunlight is instructive, in that one can see how garishly bright they were when first woven. It cannot be over-emphasized that Heriz pile weaving has a similar tonality to many Azarbayjani village and nomad rugs and flatweaves woven for local use.
Undyed gray wool was used by weavers in some villages for minor motifs, and camel-colored wool (not camel hair) was used in much the same way. Unbleached white wool and darker wool dyed dark brown and used for motif outlines complete the natural dye palette. The number of colors used in a vegetal-dyed Heriz seldom exceeds eleven.
It is likely that in many cases all wool was dyed by a single village dyer, as precisely the same colors can be seen again and again in carpets with similar design and construction. Local water and soil conditions often account for subtle variations in red and yellow tones, as do the types of mordants used and the length of time wool is immersed in a dye vat.
Through the 1920s and 1930s, the repertoire of field designs expanded, probably in response to commercial demand. Some of the excellent Serapi-style pieces woven at this time look much older than they really are, and are often mistaken first generation carpets.
New allover patterns were developed, the most common being an opposed palmette and rosette combination. Some attractive allover repeat design Herizes seem to have been woven without a precisely conceived pattern, as were some central medallion designs. Borders can contain elements that are different from the standard cloudband form, including a well-drawn rosette and palmette pattern. On occasion, field patterns from contemporaneous Mahal (Sultanabad) carpets were adapted by Heriz weavers.
Extremely large carpets, up to 5 x 8-10m (15'x 25'-30') in size, were more often woven than in previous generations. Most of these were large medallion carpets which tended to end up on the floors of private clubs, and some are truly extraordinary, such as one seen on the market about ten years ago which, with a plethora of large animals, humanoids and birds (See image 10), depicts a Persian myth. Even rudimentary depictions of birds and animals are normally rare in Heriz weaving. This large carpet, like many of the period, followed the convention of having a yellow-ground main border, almost unknown in first generation Herizes.
It has been suggested by several older dealers that post World War I Herizes with a heavy two-level warp construction were woven in the village of Heriz itself. As well as coming in a variety of patterns and sizes, they often have the centers of rosettes or small leaves knotted using yarn plied with contrasting colors to produce a speckled effect (a similar technique was used at the same time in China for export carpets). The fact that there are many more identifiable clusters of Herizes from the 1920s and 1930s than from earlier generations implies that more villages took up carpet weaving over time as export demand rose.
A second distinctive cluster, woven at the same time, was produced in and around the village of Qarajeh (Karaja). Situated at the northwestern extremity of the Heriz weaving area, Qarajeh is relatively small and isolated, located on an unpaved road to the west of the Tabriz-Ahar road (See image 11, Qarajeh in the valley bottom). (Searching for "Karaja" in East Azarbayjan led to much initial frustration, until someone brightened and said, "Oh, you must mean GaraJEH!" The successful transliteration of Persian names is an art, not a science.) Its two hundred year old mosque is filled with what would be called 'Karaja runners' in the trade. Qarajeh carpets have a different palette and structure from the main Heriz group and generally have loosely inserted single wefts, giving the carpet an almost completely smooth back. The drawing is open and almost childlike, and motifs are often highly geometricized. Red tones tend toward orange, aubergine is a common secondary colour, and an especially strong green is almost always present. Borders are often simply drawn.
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Image #10
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Image #11
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In Qarajeh weaving, the standard Heriz medallion is used, but some carpets, as well as many smaller rugs, are ornamented with medallions almost certainly taken from earlier Qarajeh 'tribal' kennareh (runners) that typically have woollen warps and wefts, finely knotted long pile, and very intense colours. This adaptation of indigenous tribal motifs is one of the few instances of such a design transfer in the Heriz weaving area, and in large Heriz carpets from other clusters of villages it almost never occurs, though on one known example, borders mimic a common Shahsavan pattern used in a weft-wrapping technique for bedding and carrying bags
In the early part of this century, the Shahsavan nomads began to settle, especially in the Ardabil area, where they allegedly produced very coarse kennarehs woven with low quality wool, but in striking colours and designs. Rugs of this type, usually with cotton foundations, are rarely seen in good condition. A second small group of Heriz-like kennarehs may, according to Iranian dealers, have been woven in the town of Meshkin, close to the frontier of the Azerbaijan Republic, where other Shahsavan nomads settled. These rugs, with woolen warps and wefts, strong colors, vigorous designs and very good wool, resemble better quality Heriz carpets from the 1920s, and may have been woven at that time, since Meshkin only grew as a major settlement after about 1900. It is curious that they were apparently not woven in larger sizes. Later Meshkin carpets are substantially different.
Small Heriz rugs are nowhere near as common as large carpets, which is probably only a reflection of early 20th century export demand. Many are uninspired, but 1.5-2m (5'x 7') medallion rugs can be Kazak-like in their appeal and, occasionally, a really small Heriz wool rug can be a gem. Sometimes popular Caucasian designs are used, for example the two-medallion 'Eagle', 'Sunburst' or 'Chelaby' Karabagh design. Runner-format rugs, a common northwest Persian type of domestic floor covering, can be striking in a Heriz weave, but are also fairly rare, except for those from Qarajeh and the Sarab area, where they were traditionally woven in large numbers, even though the prices paid for runners were generally low. Long rugs from those villages are seen today on the floors of some homes in Mehreban and Heriz, and it is probable that a hundred years ago, Sarab and Qarajeh weavers were supplying kennarehs as living room floor covers for many other villages in East Azarbayjan.
KeIleh format rugs, so common in many areas of rural Iran, are almost entirely absent from the Heriz repertoire,probably in part due to a lack of export demand, but also because they are apparently not traditional, and do not fit well into narrow village living rooms. Aside from groups of three kennarehs used in the typical Azarbayjani village living room, flatweaves constituted the major type of textile woven for domestic use. Banded gelim andjajim are commonly seen on floors in homes and mosques. Coarse goat hair gabbeh-like rugs are also said to have been used in some instances, and it is hard to believe that felts were not, at some point.
Production of vegetal-dyed Heriz carpets, with their bright color harmonies, slipped away under the assault of cheap, easy-to-use synthetic dyes by about 1940. However, the introduction of synthetic dyes was not the sole culprit in the decline of quality. The use of over-processed machine-spun wool for pile in more modern Iranian Herizes produced a flatness of colour and texture no matter what dyes were used. Iranian production since 1940 has been technically good, but colors are dominated by a somber red, blue and a brassy yellow. One of the hallmarks of early Heriz weaving - clear yellows, light blues and luminous greens - is lost. Most modern red and blue Iranian Herizes are heavily washed, in order to make them less garish.
A long and honorable tradition exists of weaving reproduction Herizes in locations ranging from Romania to Egypt and China. Although no large-scale attempt has yet been made to weave such carpets in Iran, a renaissance is just beginning: on a village loom I saw a half finished 2 x 3m (6'x 9') green-ground Heriz with yellow border, woven with hand-spun wool from Fars. However, the longer the embargo against Iranian imports into the USA continues, constricting the market for new Iranian production, the more difficult a vegetal-dyed Heriz revival in Iran itself will be, as other lower cost manufacturing areas further refine the product and establish effective marketing channels. (Note: As of this edit for the Web, the embargo is ended and some U.S.-based carpet manufacturers are beginning to reestablish their old Iranian ties, but the issues of cost, currency convertibility, and quality will probably continue to be impediments.)
Some try to ascribe lofty design traditions to Herizes, and dealers and collectors, in an effort to make them more respectable as art objects, try to make them out to be older than they are. However, it must be remembered that although Herizes were mainly woven in the 20th century, they come from a remote, conservative, rural culture, which cannot be compared to 1920s Boston, Philadelphia or London. Period Heriz weaving is sneered at by specialists in early carpets, but it developed to meet market demand, in much the same way as 16th century Ushaks and 17th century Transylvanian rugs. Old Herizes are beautiful in their own right, and should be cherished before they are no longer generally available.