When I laid out my thoughts and suspicions on the Tabriz question Dr. Mushak took it much further than I had hoped for. He informed me of the article in the first issue (1978) of HALI by Mark Whiting, dealing with dyes in classical Persian carpets. The insect dye lac was the principal red dye used in classical Persian carpets. Lac would have also been the principal red dye used in Northwest Persian classical carpets, including those of Tabriz. Use of lac yields a "cool" rather than a vivid or "bright" insect red in the blue tones that we associate with cochineal from diverse sources, including the historical "Armenian cochineal" discussed at length by Dr. Mushak in his article on insect dyes in ORR. (The Use of Insect Dyes in Oriental Rugs and Textiles: Some Unresolved Issues, VIII/5/30-39). Urban Persian carpets, certainly including those of the classical period, also used as mordanting for reds the element aluminum, in the form of alum. Mordants fix the dye to wool or other fiber. Dr. Mushak has often found alum in old Persian carpets to be variably contaminated with other mordanting elements that would soften or "sadden" the color, taking the edge off pure aluminum's relatively clear, but not bright, red effect. Dr. Mushak also made reference to a 1983 article of his in Volume 3 of ORR reporting the use of dyes and mordants in Karabagh/Shusha long rugs (A Technical Dimension to Color Esthetics in Old Armenian Weavings: Chemical Analysis of an Antique Karabagh Shusha Long Rug: III/4/3-5). That study found that bright reds in a Shusha long rug were derived from madder mordanted with tin. The insect dye in Shusha rugs appeared to be Armenian cochineal, with no evidence of lac found. Dr. Mushak has visually observed bright reds in many dragon carpet examples that would be consistent with reds mordanted with tin rather than alum, In our conversation Mushak discounted Wertime/Wright's assertion that Shusha rugs don't look like dragon rugs. He maintained that one looks for similarities in some of the specific indicator colors such as the madder and insect reds, not at differences in the overall palettes. A number of questions of dye use in dragon carpets can be definitively answered by laboratory analysis which Dr. Mushak hopes to get under way in the not-too-distant future, pending availability of samples from museum and collector holdings. In summary, Mushak notes that dragon carpets visually show no use of lac, the principal red dye of classical carpets through the 18th century, while Tabriz classical carpets show no bright reds from madder plus tin or insect dyes based on Armenian or other forms of cochineal. Dragon rug testing would confirm distinctions. He also noted that many Shusha/Karabagh carpets from the 18th and early 19th century are known and many of these, in turn, are quite large and relatively long even when compared to dragon carpets. Clearly, urban areas in the Caucasus had the capability to produce rugs as large as the dragon group. His Shusha rug article discusses an example that is 7x18. Mushak's views, based on comparative dye and color palette assessment, are in accord with those of Dr. Murray Eiland, and others, who hold to a Caucasian/Karabagh origin for most of the dragon carpets known. 1. Caucasian Carpets and Covers, by Richard E. Wright and John T. Wertime, Review by J. Barry O'Connell, Jr. Oriental Rug Review http://www.rugreview.com/barwert.htm. Thanks and best wishes, J. Barry O'Connell Jr. |
Persian Rugs the O'Connell Guides | ||||||||||||
